When I saw the credits at the end of Sausage Party I was astonished at the calibre of talent behind this film. One of the directors, Conrad Vernon is an established name at DreamWorks, having been a director of Shrek 2 and Madagascar 3! Additionally, the score and musical number were composed by THE Alan Menken! Here both are involved in a project that’s lampooning their previous work. And being rated R, there’s no holds barred, so that kind of confidence bodes well.
Set in a supermarket where anthropomorphic food and utilities dream of being taken to the “Great Beyond” by human shoppers, a hot dog called Frank (Seth Rogen) and his bun girlfriend Brenda (Kristen Wiig) are separated from their packs. Hearing a rumour that the “Great Beyond” isn’t what they’ve been led to believe, Frank sets out to find out what really happens when food is taken home. His friends and numerous other foods find out gruesomely however that their destiny is to be consumed by their own gods.
It needs to be understood going in that this a very offensive movie. Also that it’s incredibly raunchy. One of the major characters is a douche voiced by Nick Kroll, so that should give you an idea of the kind of movie you’re in for. Sometimes R-rated comedies like this feel an obligation to resort to shock humour which is often more uncomfortable than it is funny. And there are a couple moments of that in this movie. Unlike Deadpool which merely benefited from an R rating, Sausage Party is structured around it. Rather than enrich the film’s character, the R-rated content IS this films’ character, and it’s painfully obvious sometimes. There are a number of moments for instance where profanity is lazily inserted where it doesn’t need to be, just to reinforce this is an animated movie that can swear. The cast consists almost entirely of stereotypes, among the central characters are a Jewish bagel, a Muslim lavash, and a Mexican taco shell. The film kinda gets away with this though by being an equal opportunities offender and including a surprising message about tolerance.
Despite some of these factors, the film is a lot of the time, really funny. The parodies the movie sometimes falls into, such as the likes of Saving Private Ryan, Terminator 2, In the Heat of the Night, and I swear even Attack on Titan, can almost be downright hilarious. Some of the one-joke characters get a laugh too, like a wad of gum and an Irish potato, and there’s a decent running gag involving food names. But never did this film get a really great laugh out of me, or most of the audience. I think if the humour had been smarter it might have had more an effect. It dips into really clever commentary in some places with how it portrays prejudice and belief, but I’d have liked a bit more of that. There’s also a song (written by Menken) that’s clearly a fun parody of Disney musicals.
The cast in this movie is pretty impressive. Yeah, there’s the usual Rogen-Goldberg team including Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, James Franco, Danny McBride. But then there’s also Salma Hayek, and see if you can guess who Edward Norton and Paul Rudd are voicing. And though their characters are very one-dimensional I did eventually sort of buy the comradery in the central team. Hayek makes even a lesbian taco shell engaging, and the begrudging friendship between the bagel and lavash feels almost like Legolas and Gimli from Lord of the Rings, as strange as it may sound.
The third act of this movie is absolutely insane and the ending makes no sense. It’s clear the filmmakers realized this was their one chance to animate anthropomorphic food and so decided to do everything weird, over the top, and deranged they could think of. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it but in an odd way I respect the boldness of it.
Sausage Party does deliver at least to some degree what it promised: a raunchy off-the-wall comedy with some good gags and decent animation. Clearly a lot of talent went into the film if it doesn’t always show up on screen. But it’s obviously not aiming very high in terms of quality animation or storytelling. I do wish it was a little funnier though. If the warped subject matter, stereotypes, and shock humour was paired with clever writing, satire, or creativity, something along the lines of South Park or Rick and Morty, I might appreciate it more. But if you’re looking for a bizarre adult comedy that has a decently consistent sense of humour and an eccentric premise, Sausage Party is perfectly passable.
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