Spermageddon

The Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola has so far treated us with tongue-in-cheek and often deliciously violent genre flicks such as Kill Buljo and Dead Snow franchise, or The Trip (2021), starring two of the brightest shining Scandinavian stars Aksel Hennie and Noomi Rapace. On the other hand, his compatriot Rasmus A Sievertsen’s “brain children” are more along the lines of family-friendly animation, you know, the movies about Pelle the Police Car and Louis and Luca.

One might wonder could there ever be some common ground between them. Fortunately, there is, and the final product of their collaboration might at the same time fulfil, defy and overpass the audiences’ expectation.

Spermageddon is an animated feature, a sex comedy powered by raunchy humour revolving around bodily fluids and wordplay, a tender romance and a sexual education video special forged for the generations who usually get their “education” online. It premiered in the midnight section of Annecy, while its adventurous world tour included stopovers at Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Rotterdam. We finally caught up with it at Crossing Europe in Linz, Austria.

Spermageddon’s story proceeds on two levels. On the “cellular” one, it starts in a ballsack where the nerdy, dorky sperm named Simen (voiced by Hennie), his over-achieving female crush Cumilla (Mathilde Tomine Storm) and some of their buddies prepare to and eventually perform in a “rat race” bid to the fertilise the egg cell against the odds. On their way, they have to deal with some disloyal competition such as the Tony-Stark-ish “alpha sperm” Jizzmo (Christian Rubeck) and the “outer world” menaces, such as condoms, spermicide gel or getting lost in a wrong hole.

On macro-level, however, we get a glimpse into a budding romance between two teenagers, Jens (Christian Frederik Mikkelsen) and Lisa (Nasrin Khusrawi) who are both appropriately clumsy, but also eager to lose their virginity to one another. And then to have some more fun. Interestingly, Lisa’s “agenda” with which Jens wilfully complies is exactly the opposite of the one by Simen, Cumilla and the company, since she does everything in her power not to get pregnant at the tender age of 16.

The two levels of the story interlock smoothly and naturally in a way so that nobody, except maybe for the badass Jizzmo, is presented as a villain. The teenagers are quite adorable in their nerdiness, while the sperm enjoy their perilous adventure, starting from an environment that resembles the setting of a high school and going to the “uncharted territories”. The cutesy, relatively simple 2D animation is appropriately realistic for the “outer world”, while it gets more wild inside the body.

The humour might seem too provocative for the prudes, especially because the sperm-related wordplay is imaginatively varied and abundant to the point that making the film-watching experience a drinking game would leave everybody in the merry gang shitfaced long before the end. Another highlight surely is the “garnish” of musical sequences, starting with a Disney-esque Simen-Cumilla duet, via Jizzmo’s “cock-rock” theme to dirty-folksy number performed by the friendly E-Coli the sperm encounter on their adventure.

One should, however, drop the expectations of anatomical and scientific precision in this story that is, as a concept, adorably silly. As it is, it is not cut out for an after-school special, but it certainly serves its purpose to keep the viewers entertained for the lean, action-packed 80 minutes of runtime. On the other hand, Spermageddon’s educational component is actually present throughout, but it gets the spotlight in the film’s last section when the movie becomes a strong, eloquent and elegant pro-choice and family planning argument. For that reason, Spermageddon is nothing short of an instant cult.

Reviewed on: 05 May 2025