Talk about a movie that completely exceeded my expectations, a lot of my critiques in the past I felt have been rather obvious, I (like the majority of moviegoers) love most of the summer blockbusters we’ve been getting lately as well as several animated films, especially those from Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks, this year alone had incredible animated features like Kung Fu Panda 3, Zootopia, and Finding Dory. Truly an amazing year for wholesome animation for the whole family.
But one animated movie this year I was not expecting to rave the hell out of was Sausage Party, a CG animated comedy created by and starring Seth Rogen (This is the End, Neighbors, The Interview) and directed by Conrad Vernon (Shrek 2) and Greg Tiernan (Rugrats, The Wild Thornberrys). Lately I’ve been noticing the past few Rogen comedies all had a specific theme to his style of humor from Pineapple Express, he survived the apocalypse in This is the End, offended the Fuckballs out of North Korea with The Interview, and celebrated Christmas with weed and shenanigans in The Night Before.
I guess the next logical step in his career is to set his style of comedy to Toy Story-inspired animation and talking food, so we have Sausage Party, the first R-rated animated feature to be distributed by a major film studio since South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut in 1999, as well as the first CG animated R-rated film with a wide release. Gotta be honest, the trailer alone got my attention, when I first saw the trailer (Red Band I might add!) I was shocked at the concept, seeing all these cute little food characters getting mauled to death, shredded, sliced, and consumed by a giant woman, it’s like the ultimate “Fuck you!” to family entertainment, I thought it looked interesting, but to be honest I was more interested in watching it just for the sake of seeing an R-rated animated comedy movie in theaters again.
So, when the movie came out, I rounded up a couple of friends, went to a 21+ adults only theater, sat down, and watched it. Many bizarre laughs were had, I mean it we were laughing constantly at the movie, it’s an animated comedy that takes full advantage of the comedic possibilities of its premise and I got pretty much every laugh I wanted to get out of it.
The film takes place in a supermarket called Shopwell’s where food waits to be chosen by the Gods (Humans) and become eternal in a magical place known as the Great Beyond. A sausage named Frank (voiced by Seth Rogen) is in love with a bun named Brenda (voiced by Kristen Wiig-Paul, Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters) and they touch tips, and big shock a customer chooses Frank and Brenda’s packages.
But after a freak-out involving a jar of honey mustard going on and on about the truth behind being “Chosen” Frank and Brenda get flung out of the shopping cart as Frank’s best friend, Barry (voiced by Michael Cera-Arrested Development, Superbad, Juno) among other groceries get taken to a woman’s house where they start to experience the truth for themselves.
It turns out the food was being chosen to get eaten by the humans, so potatoes are skinned alive, bacon strips are fried to death, baby carrots are getting crunched, and a tomato is sliced in half, it’s murder and torture, and it tastes delicious. When Frank learns about the truth after smoking pot with the Non-Perishables, a talking liquor bottle named Firewater (voiced by Bill Hader-Superbad, Trainwreck, South Park), a Twinkie named Twink (voiced by Scott Underwood) and a box of Grits named Mr. Grits (voiced by Craig Robinson-The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine, This is the End) he makes it his mission to warn the food in the supermarket about what happens when they’re chosen.
Oh, there's also a pain in the ass douche named…Douche (voiced by Nick Kroll-I Love You Man, Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks) who was apparently the only product in the grocery store that actually wanted to be chosen because he wanted to be put up a woman's...well, you know! But seeing how he too got flung out of the cart along with Frank and Brenda and his tip got damaged in the process, he now seeks revenge on them for ruining his life, and what follows are the transformation phases of a complete madman.
Can Frank and Brenda stop Douche, save Barry and the rest of the supermarket food, and put an end to this hunger war that is ironically more accurate to The Hunger Games name than the actual Hunger Games, or will it be dinnertime for everyone?
The film also features the voices of Danny McBride (Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, This is the End) as Honey Mustard, James Franco (Spider-Man trilogy, 127 Hours, The Interview) as a drug addict literally named Druggie, Jonah Hill (Superbad, This is the End, The Wolf of Wall Street) as a bisexual sausage named Carl, Paul Rudd (Anchorman 1 and 2, Dinner for Schmucks, Marvel Cinematic Universe) as the Shopwell’s manager Darren, David Krumholtz (Harold & Kumar trilogy, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Superbad) as Kareem Abdul Lavash, Edward Norton (Fight Club, The Incredible Hulk, The Grand Budapest Hotel) as Sammy Bagel Jr., and Salma Hayek (Desperado, Frida, Grown Ups) as Teresa del Taco.
Overall, Sausage Party is completely ridiculous but it cranks up the laughs to deliciously high levels, I was laughing so hard I felt like I was turning into one of those hyenas from The Lion King. When you’re going into a Seth Rogen comedy, you can expect crude and sexual humor, profanity, and of course lots of weed and drugs, pretty standard raunchy comedy material, but hearing the material set to animation makes it feel brand new and even funnier than before.
Also, I was shocked that the characters were well developed, I cared for the sausage and bun and wanted to see them together and overcome their problems, yeah, a movie about foul-mouthed talking food and I said that sentence seriously, pay me! Most of it comes from the voice acting by Rogen and Wiig, they have very strong comedic and even heartfelt chemistry and I’m sure this won’t be their last film together.
However, with all the profanity, sex jokes, and weed smoking going on in the film, Sausage Party is surprisingly a brilliant satire on religion with the Great Beyond essentially being what the food perceives as Heaven and the humans being like Gods to them (Obviously, not the case when they discover the truth). The movie also does a great job tackling those people who try to force their religions or beliefs down others’ throats with Frank after discovering what happens to food learning to inspire the other foods to rise up against the humans rather than force it on them, I love it when adult animation and/or comedies that seem extremely lowbrow at first sneak in some thought-provoking messages.
If you want a refreshing take on animation and you don’t want to be stuck with the kids, leave the little bastards at home and go see this raunchy and hilariously wild animated comedy. Also, the ending…!
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