If Sausage Party is the best adult animated film we can do then maybe we should stick to making kids ones, as they’re far more engaging and entertaining.
Sausage Party has been hyped as the first decent R18 animated feature sprinkled with Seth Rogan’s lovable stoner humour. I’m a fan of Seth & Co. and I’ve dug just about all the movies him and Franco have worked on together, but for the most part Sausage Party is only funny for the amount of time it takes you to get over the shock of watching Pixar-like characters swearing.
The film is ostensibly about foods at a supermarket getting picked by the gods who then usher the foods to the heavenly afterlife. This becomes the films noble goal, one of beating people over the head with “You know religion is bullshit, right?”
There are genuinely awesome moments and clever little things revealed throughout the film which would make me sit up straight and get interested again. In-between however is a deluge of gags that just had me holding a grin that may have been a grimace at time. The SJW crowd found an excuse to get their nickers in a twist because every aisle is a country full of stereotypes waiting to be trotted out. If there’s one thing SJW’s hate it’s race. But I was genuinely impressed at the character modelling for these and surprised that in a movie about food they could crowbar in references of Israel and the Middle East. The different cultures were also necessary to play into the aforementioned “religion is bullshit” narrative.
With this review I hope I’m bringing your expectations down, if they’re low enough then this movie will be a pleasant “Oh that wasn’t too bad!” rather than a sad “I thought it was going to be awesome.” After watching the trailer ages ago I was pretty hyped to see this film, as was my fellow reviewer. After leaving the theater though she turned to me and said “I’m not sure how I’m going to write a review about this after the film got weird.”
Also one of the final moments of the film provide the cheapest but also most WTF moments you’ll ever see in cinema. overall the movie has odd pacing, an annoying as fuck antagonist, and one subplot which meanders nowhere in particular till they have to deus ex teleport the character back to where all the action is happening.
Some people are going to absolutely love this film, but it wasn’t me.