That was an excellent one.

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

To many Norwegians, this is perhaps one of the most important movie the country has ever produced. Even those who refuse to acknowledge Norwegian film industry tend to have a soft spot for this movie. I am Norwegian myself, and I have grown up with this - so obviously this review will be a bit biased. But I firmly believe it would not have gotten its place in Norwegian culture, had it not been for it being such a high quality movie - in all respects.The story is simple, but great fun. Reodor (en: Theodore) is an inventor that lives in a small village (Flåklypa/Pinchcliffe) with his two animal companions. Solan (en: Sonny) is an overly optimistic magpie, while Ludvig (en: Lambert) is an overly pessimistic hedgehog. Reodor discovers that an man who used to work for him has stolen the design of a car component, and used it to become a racing champ. Reodor (kind of) decides to make his own car, and it all ends in a race. This over-arching storyline is not so important though, as it is only a device used to show of the characters, the settings, the moods, the dialog, and the beautiful naive spirit of the movie. As a Norwegian, it's easy to point at it and say that he captures the Norwegian spirit - but I'm sure most countries has the same curiosity, the same strange characters and the same way of looking at life.As a fan of animation, the stop motion work in this movie is at times incredible. Especially in some of the scenes in Reodor's garage, and during the unveiling of the car. The amount of work that would have had to be put into creating all that movement must have been astounding. There's also other small touches that are very nice. When ever a character is jumping, it's so seamless that you don't think about the amount of work being put into it looking natural. Now, all of this said, there are also some sequences where the animation is clunky. The use of back projection is obvious in many scenes (especially in the HD version), and you can also tell at times that they are using smaller models than in the rest of the film. All in all, it's a great piece of craft.The other highlight of the movie is the music. The Danish composer Fabricius Bjerre has managed to make tunes that sound so Norwegian that many assume that they were old folk tunes. You'll find yourself whistling some of the themes long after the movie is over.One part of the movie that has not aged so well, is the Arab oil sheik. He is an obvious caricature, based on stereotypes. In today's political climate, you could not have a character like him. That said, it's never a mean spirited caricature, and throughout the film, it feels more they are poking fun at him as royalty, not as an immigrant or anything like that. It's definitely "kicking upwards".And a last aside: I was fortunate enough to be able to see this with some non-Norwegians who were not that acquainted with the movie, and they pointed out a fun detail that I had never thought of: the narrator gives the post man as long an introduction as the main characters. My friend was surprised by this, as the postman is barely in the movie at all. For some reason, to me, it's always just made sense for the narrator to introduce the post man - because he just happens to be there the morning the narrator decides to talk about the gang.

When I look at the comments, remember that this is a puppet movie from 1975! In a way it's a parody on rural Norway the way it was over 30 years ago! Today Norway, like the rest of the world, is so very different. Multicultural and far less innocent. I think that explains why so many people from my generation loves this movie. It's a testament from a less complicated past, besides the fact, of course, that it holds precious childhood memories.If this had been a more widely known movie internationally, I can already imagine that Muslims would have had several issues with it. After all, we now live in a paranoid and censor happy world.

I first saw this when I was at Universitet i Oslo and I went to the film festival in about 1990.I'd only just arrived and so my norwegian wasn't up to much at the time, however, I knew that what I was seeing was something special.I spent about six years trying to remember what exactly it was called until finally the wonderful internet helped me to find it again.Now, having shown it to my five year old, I know that this film is timeless as she adores it too.I recommend this film to anyone who wants to see something the equal of anything produced by Aardman - my little girl likes the hedgehog best.

I first watched this movie when I was about five years old (already at that time it was old) and I've seen it many times since. It's just about the best animated movie ever, forget Finding Nemo (which is a great movie) or the Toy Story-films, this is simply sublime.To all who haven't seen this movie: Go watch it, it's perfect. The story, the characters, the villains, the cars, the animation and just how to get the ideas behind this 'still stuns me. The only problem is that i've never seen the original version (only the danish version). However, should I ever get the chance to see the original I'll certainly not hesitate.10 out of 10.