Sausage Party

Sausage Party

Starring Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Salma Hayek

Directed by Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon

The Story:
At a supermarket called Shopwell's, the food believe that the "gods" (humans) take them into the Great Beyond after leaving the store, so they all strongly desire to be chosen.  Frank (Seth Rogen) the sausage and Brenda (Kristen Wiig) the bun are eagerly awaiting to be chosen so they can consummate their relationship, since they're both sealed in separate packages.  When they're finally chosen during the Fourth of July, they're over the moon, until a returned honey mustard (Danny McBride) tells them that the Great Beyond is a lie, and when you leave the store you die.  Frank and Brenda get left behind in the store and they go in search of Firewater (Bill Hader) who might know the truth, traveling with Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton) - a Jewish bagel - Kareem Abdul Lavash (David Krumholtz) - a Middle Eastern lavash - and Teresa del Taco (Salma Hayek) - a lesbian taco.  As they travel, they're hunted by Douche (Nick Kroll), a damaged douche who blames them for keeping him from going to the Great Beyond.  As they uncover the truth, they then have to find a way to tell the other foods what they believe in is a lie, and they have to fight back.

The Synopsis:
Seth Rogen is one of today's most humorous actors and writers, and he's gathered a group of friends who do different movies together, much like the Brat Pack of the 80s, including James Franco, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Michael Cera, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Craig Robinson and Nick Kroll.  Their previous films include "Pineapple Express," "This is the End," and "Knocked Up," and are downright hilarious.  They blend raunchy sexual humor with intelligent, witty dialogue and deliver nuanced characters who are often more deep than their personas let out.  With "Sausage Party," the raunchy sexual humor is there, as well as the over-the-top foul language, but it's missing the intelligent wit and deep characterization, and instead turns out to be something you'd find on "Family Guy" circa the last three years (when it stopped being funny).

"Sausage Party" is the first R-rated CG-animation film, and was something Rogen had wanted to do since 2008, but could never find a distribution company.  Maybe there was a reason for that.  The film itself is very devoid of humor, with only a few standout moments (the homage to "Saving Private Ryan" was rather funny, along with the scene where those chosen are taken home and see what really happens to them, as was the final battle scene).  The film also has a rather deep message regarding religion - how the food believes they're going to a Paradise when rather it's their destruction, and once they learn the truth it seems like a hopeless cause for them, and how fighting amongst each other doesn't really solve anything.  Still, this message is drowned out by overly excessive use of foul language (hearing a sausage say the F-word is funny maybe the first two times, but fifty times later it kind of loses its luster), sexual humor (mentioning "just the tip" is, as aforementioned, funny the first two times or so, but also becomes rather droll fifty times later), lame food-related puns ("I really relish the fact that you mustard the strength to ketchup to me!") and dated religious/racist jokes (there's a Jewish bagel and Palestinian lavash and a Native American-type character who blames "crackers" for taking his land.  The jokes practically write themselves).  

The story discusses the issues of belief and faith, but it's drowned out by the needless R-rated humor that would've been better if it was...peppered...throughout the film in little bits, but instead it throws it in our face with every sentence being spoken having at least one curse word or sexual innuendo.  If done correctly, it could be really funny, but with it being so overly excessive it looses its impact when you expect to hear something every literal second of the film.  Plus there's a side story of a killer Douche who goes after Frank and Brenda, which becomes so overshadowed I totally forgot he even existed.

The ending itself is rather...well...revolutionary I might say?  Let's just say if you thought "that" scene in "The Matrix Reloaded" was over-the-top, you haven't seen this film yet.  Some say it was incredibly uncomfortable and unsettling, I just found it annoying and not too funny.

That's not to say the whole film is terrible.  The animation is rather top-notch for being done for under $20 million, and parallels Pixar's quality here.  Plus, as I mentioned earlier, there's some really funny scenes in the film - unfortunately most of those are highlighted in the trailer as well.


The Summary:
I don't wanna sound cheesy, but I can appreciate Seth Rogen's passion for the film, but in the end it seems like he just wanted to make a Pixar-esque raunchy comedy.  To that end, he succeeded in at least half of his plan - it was raunchy, but not very funny.   He definitely gave us something to taco bout, and he is kind of a big dill, but he dropped the ball here.  Please romaine calm, thanks for pudding up with me, and have an egg-cellent day.

The Score: C