(Disclaimer: I don’t
usually do this but there are going to be some MAJOR SPOILERS at the end of
this review following the rating as I will be delving into how much the film
has changed since I saw it at SXSW. Also some of you might have recently heard
of the controversies surrounding this film’s production, namely the fact that
some of its animators were overworked and underpaid. It’s certainly a troubling
situation but I will not be bringing it up in the review.)
It’s time once again to talk more about one of the films
that I got to see early at SXSW in Austin, Texas this past March. And this one,
Sausage Party, is a particularly
noteworthy one because when it premiered there on March 14th, it
wasn’t finished yet. It was shown in ‘rough cut’ form, with some of the
animation being unfinished. It so wasn’t finished yet that there was actually a
scene that was just storyboards and apparently it had actually been screened
sometime prior to that as nothing but storyboards. So because it was only a
‘Rough Cut’, I decided not to give it an official rating in my 2016 SXSW Recap
Post. However, now the film is finally out in its finished state, meaning that
I now have the opportunity to review it properly. Sausage Party is certainly a unique entry in the animated genre.
While it may seem like your typical Disney/Dreamworks affair, namely in regards
to the cartoony designs of its main characters that would certainly fit in any
other animated film, believe me when I say that this is not an animated film
you’re going to want to take your kids to. This is a very much R-rated animated
flick that is as crass and filled to the brim with sexual innuendos and pot as
you’d probably expect from the duo behind it; Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. But
if you can look pass all of the juvenile references, sex talk, and pot jokes, Sausage Party is actually a rather
smartly written animated flick that very much takes advantage of its more
mature rating, though maybe a bit too much at times, to produce a hilariously
dark spin on what, on the surface, would seem like something you’d see in a
Disney film.
The film mainly takes place within the confines of a
supermarket called Shopwell’s. In this supermarket, its various food items are
living beings who dream of being taken by ‘the gods’ [humans] and brought out
of the store into ‘the Great Beyond’. One of these foods is a sausage named
Frank (Seth Rogen) who dreams of being chosen along with his girlfriend, a hot
dog bun named Brenda (Kristen Wiig), so that they take their relationship
beyond ‘just the tips’. As fate would have it, they do end up getting chosen
together by a female shopper during Fourth of July weekend. However, a jar of
Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) that had been previously brought to ‘the Great
Beyond’ but was then returned to the store warns them that the ‘Great Beyond’
is nothing but a bunch of BS and jumps off of the cart to his death, ultimately
resulting in Frank, Brenda, a lavash named Kareem Abdul Lavash (David
Krumholtz), and a bagel named Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton) falling out of
the cart as well following a collision with another cart. Now on their own as
the store closes for the night, the quartet decide to journey back to their
aisles, all the while dealing with a douche (Nick Kroll, and by ‘douche’ I mean
the feminine hygiene product) that seeks revenge against Frank for getting his
nozzle bent. It is during this time that Frank begins to learn more about what
Honey Mustard was talking about and through a meeting with the ‘immortal’
non-perishables led by liquor bottle Firewater (Bill Hader), Frank finally
learns the truth about the ‘Great Beyond’; it is a lie. Even worse, when food
is taken by humans, the humans end up “killing their asses”, resulting in Frank
having to try and reveal the horrible truth to his peers before it’s too late.
The humor in Sausage
Party is very much what’d you expect from Rogen and Goldberg; it’s full of
sexual innuendo, pot jokes, etc. And in the case of this film, that also means
quite a lot of food-related puns. Pretty much any food pun that you can think
of is probably in this film. Now as far as the humor is concerned, I must say
that this film actually has a really solid gag-to-laugh ratio. It will legitimately
have you guffawing throughout and while on the surface it may seem like a
really stupid food version of Toy Story,
the writing is actually much more complex than you think. Yes, amidst all of
the f-bombs, marijuana use, and many, many, MANY stereotypes that are
represented in food form, there’s actually quite a bit of in-depth social
commentary in this film, namely in regards to religion as represented by the
food of Shopwell’s being led to believe that nothing bad ever happens to food,
which of course isn’t true in their cases. Instead, the film promotes unity
amongst cultures and taking control of your own life. So yeah… this film
basically gives the idea of religion the middle finger. With that said,
admittedly sometimes the film can be a little too crass for its own good. I
mean, sure, I get it, it’s an R-rated animated film so they do have much more
creative leeway to get away with stuff that you would NEVER see in something
from Disney, Pixar, or Dreamworks. Still, there are times where it does feel
like they’re just relishing in the fact that it’s R, meaning plenty of f-bombs
thrown out here and there really for no real reason other than they can.
Thankfully, that only happens a few times in the film.
Animation-wise the film is perfectly fine as a film made by
a non-Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks studio with a low budget. It’s nothing special,
for the record, but it does definitely deserve some credit for the ways in
which it brings this world of food to life, mainly through its character
designs. It also certainly does its job in giving the film a Disney-esque style
with its own cartoonish and colorful style. Heck, they even got Alan Menken,
the man who has brought us countless iconic Disney songs over the years, to do
the film’s opening musical number. Needless to say all of this gets really
hilarious when the filmmakers start to do more adult stuff with the animation,
namely in the ending which, without giving anything away, is something that
truly needs to be seen to be believed. The same can be said for scenes in which
food characters are brutally killed by humans. Obviously it isn’t graphic in
the same way that scenes like this would be if they involved humans but it does
still provide a hilariously disturbing sight. As for the voice cast, pretty
much every one is spot on for their respective roles; Seth Rogen as Frank, Kristen
Wiig as Brenda, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera as some of Frank’s fellow sausages
with the latter being viewed as a runt due to him being a deformed sausage,
Edward Norton as the Woody Allen-ish Sammy Bagel Jr. (no joke, some people at
the SXSW screening didn’t even realize it was Norton until the end of the
film), Salma Hayek as a lesbian taco shell who harbors feelings for Brenda,
etc. Admittedly most of the characters are rather one-note save for a few (e.g.
Cera’s character Barry) but the cast does make it all work in the long run.
Now like I said before, when I first saw this film I didn’t
give it a rating at the time because it was only a ‘Rough Cut’. Plus, because
the SXSW crowd was so into it (I’m pretty sure there were a few stoners in
there… this is a Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg film, after all), sometimes I
couldn’t even hear the dialogue. So now I’ve finally seen the film in its final
form and overall I must say that it really is a solid animated flick. For one
thing, the film is absolutely hilarious from beginning to end; most of the
jokes, even some of the obviously offensive ones, do hit. And while on the
surface this whole premise of food learning of their true purpose in life may
sound really silly, and let’s be honest that’s exactly what it is, the writing
can actually be rather smart at times, namely through how it comments on
religion and the beliefs that one has through said religion. Pair that with the
hilarious mash-up of Disney-style animation with the messed up crap that goes
on in this film and the absolutely spot-on voice cast and you just have one
absolutely crazy but still highly entertaining animated feature. Like Deadpool and superhero films earlier
this year, perhaps Sausage Party will
open the door for more R-rated animated films. Clearly people are open for
films like this that aren’t afraid to be a bit more mature despite being part
of a genre that’s mostly seen PG-rated stories. I’ve seen quite a few great
R-rated animated films before; South
Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Team
America: World Police, etc. So hopefully thanks to this film, we’ll be
seeing more down the road, including the certainty that is a sequel to this
film, which ends on quite an interesting note that will no doubt set up an even
crazier follow-up.
Rating: 4/5
****
SPOILER SECTION (IF YOU HAVE NOT
SEEN THE FILM YET, READ NO FURTHER!!)
So as I’ve been saying throughout this review, when I saw
this at SXSW not all of the animation was finished. Some scenes were in the
early stages of rendering and some of them didn’t even feature full character
animation yet. This was primarily the case during the opening song number and
pretty much most of the finale, including the scene in which Frank tries to
rally the supermarket food to fight ‘the Gods’ and, yes, even the infamous orgy
scene. There was also one additional scene that didn’t end up in the theatrical
cut. After the food have their massive orgy, Frank and friends learn from
Firewater that they are actually only ‘cartoons’ brought to life by animators
and voiced by celebrities like Seth Rogen and Edward Norton. The wise figure
that is Gum then reveals that he has built an inter-dimensional device that
would allow them to travel to their creators’ world. Frank and co. decide to
enter it and they end up in Los Angeles right across the street from a diner
where Seth Rogen, Michael Cera, and Edward Norton are having lunch. As the trio
talk about doing an animated film about talking food, Frank and friends storm
into the diner through the window to attack them. Now for the record I don’t
know if this was actually intended to be in the film. The animation in this
scene was completely non-existent; it was literally just the 2-D models of the
characters on a 2-D plane set against the live-action footage. I mean
personally I think it would’ve been a funny little ending tag seeing Rogen,
Cera, and Norton get attacked by the food but it’s probably for the better that
they didn’t use this scene. Instead, the film ends as Frank and his friends go
into the portal. With that said, though, perhaps this scene will be featured on
the Blu-Ray. It would certainly set the stage for what will no doubt happen in
the sequel as Frank and co. interact with ‘their creators’.
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