Bodily Functions

This review contains no spoilers.

One big attention-grabbing quality is to have cute characters, and I admit, I am a total sucker when it comes to cuteness. I can't help going 'aww' and feeling sorry for them when something goes wrong, and Bodily Functions exploits this 'vulnerability' extremely well. As a result, I absolutely love this movie, watching it close to a total of ten times now, and considering this was made in 2000, it was definitely a surprise. You see, I only really got into 3DMM reviewing this year, in 2004, and so it is hard for me to treat this like a 2000 movie because, like Aaron Haynes said somewhere, I am coming across movies ranging from 1996 to 2003 for the first time, all at once. And so for Bodily Functions to stun me like this is indeed extremely impressive.

Apart from the 'cuteness', what is also quite impressive is the effectiveness of the story, considering it is so simple. Bodily Functions, without revealing too much, takes place inside the human body. In here, you can clearly see the heart, lungs, diaphragm, and more internal bodily parts. You can also see red blood cells entering capillaries and white blood cells patrolling around the body. Its cartoony look (which is helped by the 'kiddy' graphics of 3D Movie Maker) makes this more like a fantasy adventure, and this helps create a warm feeling inside your body. Everything seems normal, until...a cut suddenly appears, leaving a wide gap into the body, and bacteria start charging in! Oh no! By this moment, I was already feeling for the poor red blood cells. They are defenceless, running away, and that was just after a couple of minutes in. I was, not far in, feeling sympathy for those poor cells, and immediately, Bodily Functions is on its way to a winner.

But there is a main blood cell, and we do get obvious hints who it is right from the start. It is a green-coloured red blood cell, and bringing back the fact that Bodily Functions oozes cute characters, the green-coloured cell harmlessly mucks, around like a small kid, with a high-pitched sweet voice. 'Cute' is definitely one of the biggest and most important factors here in this movie, but does the movie depend on cuteness? No. OK, maybe it wouldn't be as impressive, but it would still just about work with the amounts of sympathy I was giving to the helpless red blood cells. Bodily Functions, although cuteness is vital, depends more really on sympathy. If you don't feel for the blood cells (maybe you are heartless) Bodily Functions won't appeal to you at all. Adrian Pikios puts a lot of effort into trying to gain sympathy using plenty of subtle touches: the defenceless blood cells, the evil and dangerous-looking bacteria, the high-pitched terrified voices, the cornering of the poor things and the huge area the bacteria have dominated so quickly. It is hard not to feel anything for the seemingly-hopeless red blood cells.

Another quality Bodily Functions shows is its animations. Although this was made in 2000, this can just about stand well to be a 2002 movie, that's two years ahead. The hand-made characters are done very well and are put to great use, and their simplicistic look, which is notably nowhere as stunning and complex compared to those shown in REDUX or Mario Saga, helps towards Bodily Functions' cute and cartoony look. One thing that didn't impress me though was the scenery. Even though Pikios showed some fairly good objects in the background, still and moving, I saw so much black. Fortunately, I didn't notice this until my fourth viewing, and it is obvious that this cute (yes, that word again) adventure really keeps you engrossed.

Back to the many bright points, one thing that really stood out in Bodily Functions, apart from the cuteness and the masses of sympathy appeal is the audio. Why? Well try to finish off these sentences: 1) The sound effects were used brilliantly, creating impressive hectic atmospheres and therefore, for the red blood cells, I felt more...sympathy. 2) The high-pitched voices of the red blood cells were nicely done, making me feel more for them because they sounded so...cute. 3) The music, both dramatic and cheerful, created tense and relieved moods, keeping you glued to the screen because of the...sympathy you are giving. Yep, those two words cropping up again: 'cute' and 'sympathy', and I really did feel for them. At the end of the movie, I closed 3DMM with a huge smile, and a large part of this was contributed by the ending sound effects and music, as the camera zoomed out of the body. Definitely my favourite ending shot of any movie.

And so, as you read this final paragraph and take a look at Bodily Functions' final score, I suppose I need to explain why I gave it 100. I know there is no such thing as a 'perfect' movie, but there has to be a top end of a scale to show a movie's excellence, and Bodily Functions really did wow me. A lot of this movie's best qualities were used to pretty much their full potential; the cuteness and audio were exploited in such a beautiful way that I actually looked at my own body and kind of felt for the cells inside my own body. Pathetic, aren't I? Even though there were some minor flaws in the scenery (and if you are really picky, the biological side of things), they were unnoticeable as the mvoie makes you focus on what it is best at, and in this case, it is the characters, and how much you care about them. This is no doubt a classic, one of the all-time greats, and I am proud to give Bodily Functions a rare 100/100.

Score: 100/100