I was pretty excited to see this movie after first noticing the previews. It fits into a genre that doesn’t often have many options for us grown up movie goers, since mostly kid and family friendly films dominate the box office. When viewing the uncensored preview for this movie it was easy to see what we were getting ourselves into: foul language, crude humor, sexual innuendos, and animated food violence.
There are many strengths within Sausage Party. The cast is one of the main selling points with very solid comedy minds coming together: Michael Cera, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Selma Hayek, Edward Norton, Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, Nick Kroll, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, and Kristen Wiig make up the majority of the characters with some playing multiple roles. I really got a kick out of the voice acting and despite being an animated film, it was easy to appreciate the talent on display. In addition to the strong voices, there is some surprising humor packed into this party. I was not expecting to see many, if any, intelligent jokes during the 89 minute run time but I was proven wrong. There are plethora of jokes and jabs thrown into this script that some people may miss but they fit right in and help balance out the vulgarity of the rest of the movie. Obviously there is plenty of juvenile, dirty, sexual, “toilet humor” if you will, but even the majority of that is delivered well and I found myself laughing with the rest of the crowd. Anytime you give Seth Rogen the green light on an R rated movie about talking food, you should know there will be plenty of lowbrow comedy. Another thing I was not sure of heading into the showing was the plot. I really didn’t think they could write enough story to last for an entire movie. Once again, I was suprised by Rogen and company. I don’t want to spoil too much for those who have not seen the movie. The story follows Frank the sausage (Seth Rogen) and Brenda the bun (Kristen Wiig) on their lives within the grocery store where they live and the desire of all the food to reach “the great beyond” with the “gods” (humans). I won’t divulge any more information about the adventure but it was unanticipated with how well the story kept me interested.
While I was impressed with the various strengths, this movie does have several weaknesses and they are glaring. There is an opening musical number which starts out strong and funny but seemed to carry on too long and I began to lose hope in the movie as a whole. Even though majority of the humor is strong, there are plenty of parts that try too hard to be funny through shock value. These scenes push past the boundary of joyful tomfoolery and into vulgar buffoonery. Again I do not want to spoil anything but when you see the movie maybe you will understand. If you happen to disagree, leave a comment with your thoughts and discuss! With all the strengths in the story line, the ending was among the weak points. I thought the movie was going to end with an acceptable movie ending but the writers had other ideas it seems and the movie extended for several minutes that didn’t add any value.
Overall this movie presents a mixed bag. It has laughable moments mixed in with some cringe worthy moments. It has a fairly solid story that sometimes gets a little wayward. If your desire is to have a relatively quick (well under 2 hours) laugh with minimal thinking involved then Sausage Party may be for you. If you are easily offended then you probably aren’t interested anyway and should stay away. Sausage Party had some potential to distinguish itself as a higher quality juvenile humor animated film but didn’t quite deliver on all fronts. I will give it 5 Apologies but the filmmakers offer none of their own.
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-Movie Apologist