Sausage Party

As Sausage Party was nearing it’s halfway point, I began to think it was getting lazy.  It seemed to be favoring it’s raunchiness over the inventive intelligence I knew it’s creators were capable of.  It was still making me laugh, but it’s shtick was getting old, and having cartoon food characters use bad language is only funny if all the words around the bad ones add up to a good joke.  If not, then it’s akin to a child who just discovered cursing, and thinks that it’s cool to do it 24/7; which can get on your nerves.

Luckily though, just as this feeling was creeping in, a “Meatloaf” song began playing on the film’s soundtrack to eventually reveal a literal meatloaf providing the tunes.  I wondered if I laughed harder than I should have because the joke was so simple, but simple doesn’t matter if the joke is hilarious; which it was.  Comedy does not have to be complex to work; the simplistic joke can be the greatest.  The guys behind Sausage Party know this, and they used it throughout the film,  but they also used that intelligence I was talking about by taking a story about a hot-dog wanting to have sex with his bun soulmate, and making it about the mystery of religion.

They’re also some sick and twisted minds.

Seriously, I saw a father take his eight year old son to this movie, and the theater attendant tried to warn him, but on he went.  And I guarantee that kid came out with some questions.  Parents really need to understand that Sausage Party isn’t just rated “R,” but it comes close to NC-17.  Similar to how Deadpool wasn’t just the “R rated superhero movie,” but an insanely adult one.  Thankfully, what Sausage Party has the most in common with Deadpool, is that it eventually finds more than just raunch in it’s humor.  It’s most outrageous stuff is saved for the end and it’s memorable because it’s funny, not because it’s just outrageous.

The films sees Frank, the sausage (Seth Rogan) awaiting to be chosen along with his fellow sausages, and companion buns, on the eve of the fourth of July.  After an accident, Frank gets separated from the group with his girlfriend Brenda the bun (Kristen Wigg), Sammy the bagel (Edward Norton), and Lavash…the lavash (David Krumholtz); they are joined by other various food products in the attempt to get back to their respected aisles. It’s not unintentional that this is a similar plot to most of Pixar’s work, such as Toy Story and Inside/Out, where a group of unique characters become fish out of water, and try to find home.  What is surprising though is that the film tries to take it a step further by having it’s characters question their place in the universe, whether or not the “Gods” are truly kind beings that take them to salvation in “the great beyond,” or is all of that a lie.

The film is able to successfully tackle this stuff because it always remains self-aware that we’re watching a parody.  No matter what the issue is, the filmmakers always remind the audience to not take any of it that seriously, unlike other animated films that always have a message for children and their families to take away.  This allows for smart humor, such as the Jewish bagel and the Arab lavash having discussions similar to the human arguments involving the forever war in the middle-east, it helps that the lavash thinks he’s going to be doused with 72 bottles of extra virgin olive oil in the afterlife.

The animation isn’t exactly pretty, and most of the inventive visuals come from ideas in the script, but this isn’t a film where the animation needs to call attention to itself. It is funny that it’s animators are the people behind various Dreamworks Animation films and Thomas the Tank Engine movies; it’s funny because of how ridiculous it must of been to work on a project like this, after many years of family entertainment.

The voice cast is where the film really shines though.  Rogan ans Wigg are the the straight arrows in a crazy group, but I’ve got to admit that I actually wanted their characters to end up together;  Michael Cera, as a stunted sausage, and Salma Hayek, as a horny taco, both brought more to it than actors just reading words;  James Franco, as a druggie human was well cast, just as Danny McBride was perfect for a traumatized honey mustard jar.  My favorite work was by the actors that remained unrecognizable; Edward Norton nails the Woody Allen impression as the bagel; Nick Kroll as Douch (an actual douche) was a great rift on the juicers at the gym, and there’s Paul Rudd, who I forgot was even in the movie because he was so unrecognizable as the grocer in the store, and I was wondering why that character was making me laugh.

Does the film go to the “bad language well” way too often? Yes.  Does it try too hard to be as crazy as possible? Yes.  Is it great for all of it’s 90 minute run-time? No.  But when it’s jokes land, they land solid, and some of them (especially references to Saving Private Ryan and Terminator 2) had me rolling.  When Rogan and his frequent co-writer, Evan Goldberg (though this film had six writers), tackle a new project, they may always have weed jokes, but they’re always smoking up in a new place. Sausage Party is a place worth going to.

Grade: B