Flash Movie Review: Sausage Party
It started out when you were told to open the hangar doors wide because the airplane was coming in for a landing. Your parents would be making plane noises with their lips as the flying spoon they held with its contents of baby food came close to your gaping mouth. I only experienced the hangar doors for a short time before my mouth turned into a vacuum cleaner. After a couple of years when the airplane was no longer in commission, your food became a teaching tool. A bowl of soup offered the opportunity to spell words with the floating noodles shaped in the alphabet. How many of you would eagerly down a spoonful of soup with the words dog or cat staring at you? The next stage was not always a choice for many; the introduction of fast food. Coming with your food now were little toys and prizes. As an added bonus you did not have to always sit at a table to eat your food. This fast food allowed you to sit in the back seat of the car and eat while your parent was driving you home. Now depending on your age you may have grown up with one or two cooking shows on television that were hosted by Julia Child or Joyce Chen. Others may have seen a variety of food shows, from contests, to specific cuisines, to learning how to hold a dinner party for eight; food took on a new level of entertainment. I myself have tasted a variety of foods from a small country diner all the way to an exclusive world class haute cuisine restaurant. None of this prepared me for the food I saw in this animated adventure comedy. FRANK, voiced by Seth Rogan (Steve Jobs, The Interview), discovers the true meaning behind being chosen by a shopper at the grocery store and it was no where near what he and all his friends thought it would be. This film had a multitude of actors voicing the characters such as Kristen Wiig (The Martian, Welcome to Me) as Brenda, Edward Norton (American History, Fight Club) as Sammy and Salma Hayek (Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Some Kind of Beautiful) as Teresa. I found the beginning of the story interesting, filled with fun and jokes. Personally I understand the use of profanity can provide shock value in an amusing way; I quickly find it lazy humor the more it is used and curse words made up a a good portion of the script. As the story progressed I found less and less to enjoy about this picture. To me the writing was geared for a narrow range of viewers who just want to be shocked by inappropriate behavior. There definitely was a decent message to convey but it was undercooked compared to the rise of raw adult only scenes. As far as I could tell the prominent goal of the script was to surprise and maybe upset the viewer instead of providing a good story. All I can say is this movie provided a new definition to what is considered food porn.
2 stars
Posted on August 15, 2016, in Fantasy/Sci-Fi and tagged 2 stars, adventure, animation, comedy, edward norton, grocery store, jonah hill, kristen wiig, salma hayek, seth rogan. Bookmark the permalink. 7 Comments.
It sounds avoidably dreadful!
I am afraid so; I will be curious to see how it does in the box office results next week. Thank you for the comment.
I had only heard of this movie through my kids. They had seen images from the movie and thought it looked cute. I looked it up and broke it to them that they wouldn’t be seeing it any time soon. It seems that even bad language aside they aren’t going to be missing out on much.
Taking them to see it would have been a form of abuse. Glad this wasn’t open for discussion.
Ha! The language alone meant it was never open for discussion with my kids. I’m pretty permissive when it comes to their movie viewing (I’ve let them watch a couple of Hitchcock movies, for instance) but there’s no way they are getting to see Sausage Party any time soon.
Hand smacks forehead and head shakes slowly at this one. Pass
It is astounding isn’t it? Thanks for the comments.