Sausage Party ***½ (2016, voices Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Michael Cera) – Movie Review

We don’t get too many adult animations, so this one is welcome if only for that, though adult animation is a misnomer, Sausage Party is very darned juvenile. It’s all weiner and buns jokes, all F and C words, so great, bring it on! And they do! Sausage Party is funny. It has to be with that title. The story and screenplay are mainly by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, so you’ll probably know what to expect. They paint the screen blue.

Starting off with an Alan Menken musical number, Sausage Party follows the rule of thumb from Mel Brooks school of scattergun movie comedy: throw enough gags at the screen and some of them will stick, one in three will be funny and one in five, or maybe ten, hilarious.

A sausage named Frank (Seth Rogen), his companion Brenda the Bun (Kristen Wiig), and his buddy Barry (Michael Cera) are the key food products at Shopwell’s Grocery Store. There, they are lulled into a false sense of security and happiness, lied to about ‘the great beyond’, what happens when they leave the supermarket.

I just loved how surreal and rude and silly this movie is! And how funny! The early twentysomething audience round me was giggling throughout and sometimes convulsed with laughter. It’s a unique film. It should be a one-joke movie, and it is, but that joke is repeated in various inspired variations for 89 minutes. It’s full of invention and fun. Of course, as it is Seth Rogen, there are once again awful lots of gay jokes (or lots of awful gay jokes), some of dubious taste and possibly homophobic (it’s hard to tell). I like Rogen and his sense of humour, and am willing to forgive him his trespasses.

The animation is superb, the music is great, and indeed the film has a rare polish, especially unexpected in a project that must have started as a bunch of jokes over a few beers (or whatever) late at night round Rogen’s house, and got written down quick on the back of an envelope before they got forgotten.

You can’t imagine any producer financing this idea and this project, but I bet they are jolly glad they did. It’s already earned a fortune. But, PLEASE, no friggin’ sequel. It’s a unique film and it needs to stay unique.

Rated 15 in the UK and R in the US for strong crude sexual content, pervasive very strong language, and drug use.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review

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