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The creative team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg has brought us some interesting projects over the last few years. Whether it’s the post-apocalyptic comedy This is the End, the Michel Gondry superhero film The Green Hornet, or the comic book adaptation Preacher (amongst literally fifteen other things), they always try to do something different. Now, with Sausage Party (which I am definitely late in reviewing), they have made cinematic history by bringing the first rated-R animated film to the screen. With experienced animator Conrad Vernon (who used to work at Dreamworks) and first-time director Greg Tiernan in charge, does this film actually work? Let’s find out.
Sausage Party shows us a world where everything in the store, from the food to cleaning instruments and more, is alive and waiting for the day where humans come to take them home. When a jar of honey mustard (voiced by Danny McBride) is returned to the store after witnessing what happens to food, a hot dog named Frank (voiced by Seth Rogen) tries to uncover the truth after a cart collision sends him and his love, a hot dog bun named Brenda (voiced by Kristen Wiig), flying across the store. As they try to get back to their aisle and find out what lies in “The Great Beyond,” they are hunted by Douche (voiced by Nick Kroll), a dudebro feminine product that hungers for revenge against them, and will stop at nothing to take them out.
While I was sitting in the theater watching this, the first thing I noticed was that this entire film is a big middle finger to religion. Each item in the store believes that humans are gods, and that the ultimate goal for their lives is to be taken out of the store and into “The Great Beyond,” which is people's homes. The film opens with the store items singing a song about how they want to be chosen and how their beliefs are ironclad, with no room for interpretation. This causes strife between the characters as Brenda refuses to believe Frank’s doubt and the store items refuse to believe Frank, even when he has solid physical proof about what humans do to food. If it isn’t obvious as to what they’re trying to say, then… Well, keep that rosy view of the world up. It’s much better than the one we really live in.
The film is also incredibly offensive on multiple levels, featuring pretty bad stereotypes for every race, religion, and more (from a box of grits voiced by Craig Robinson, a black man, to a Middle Eastern food that I can’t identify having an absurd feud with an obnoxiously Jewish bagel). It also never fails to go for the gross out jokes, which you should have picked up by the fact that the villain is a literal douche. However, I have a line of thought about comedy: if something is really offensive, but it can balance it out with being funny, I’ll let it slide. That’s why, as a Christian, I didn’t get bothered by the religious jokes, because they were actually quite funny (and true, based on many narrow-minded folks that are out there). The film has its share of duds, but there are enough really laugh out loud moments to drown those out, particularly the food puns, which I found glorious.
Before heading into the negatives, I wanted to give some props to the animators, who did a pretty good job making this world look nice. There are a few rough spots, like some of the human animations (but nothing compared to the masterpiece of awful known as FoodFight!), and occasionally it falters in some of the bigger action set pieces, but it’s good work overall. There are nice, cute references to all kinds of films here that were cool to see, and it’s interesting to see how they bring these items to life. This is also helped by the stellar voice cast, who really pull you in and make you care about these characters, even if they are just stereotypes.
The biggest problem with this movie is that while it tries to be a mixture of Toy Story and South Park, it isn’t nearly as clever as either of them. While the film is consistently funny, the greater message that they’re trying to get across with religion doesn’t really hit. In South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker attack everybody and give each person their time to have their say. Sausage Party has a moment where Brenda gets to talk back to Frank and point out his flaws as an atheist-type, but it feels so hollow, like the writers really didn’t even want to put that in. This flaw is honestly what keeps Sausage Party from being a great comedy, as random throwaway lines about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the effects of colonialism seem like nothing more than attempts to be “edgy” rather than having anything of value to say.
If I were to find something else to say bad about this film, it’d be that the logic of this world makes no sense at all and it makes no attempt to fix that. Regardless of the problematic fact that items in general are alive (if ketchup and tomatoes can both talk and are alive, how many tomatoes died to make that ketchup?), it’s established that they can move freely and that humans can only see things rolling around. However, these things are moving pretty fast and with purpose right in plain view of humans, but nobody seems to recognize this at all! There’s a half-baked attempt to explain this with a drug subplot (Get it? Half-baked? Drugs? I’ll see myself out), but it just makes things more confusing. At least Toy Story rarely pushed that boundary too too much, but this does it so much that I just got yanked out of the movie.
While it isn’t one of the great comedies of this decade, Sausage Party is definitely the funniest thing I’ve seen this year minus Deadpool. It keeps the laughs coming and isn’t afraid to go for the gross out joke, and I was impressed with how funny they were able to make jokes that should have infuriated me. However, its central message fails to reach because of flawed writing and delivery, and sometimes the jokes don’t land like they should. If you can stomach the humor I think you’ll have a great time, but seriously, DO NOT take your kids to see this just because it’s animated. You will scar them for life!
My Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Sausage Party is in theaters now.
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