I gotta admit, when the trailer for Sausage Party first came
out back in spring, I was NOT looking forward to it. I yearned for Hollywood to
learn that animation wasn’t all kiddie like their marketing teams promoted it. There
is a LOT of potential in this medium that’s only restrictions are the animator’s
imagination. But, when an earlier draft of the film’s script was leaked shortly
after the movie, I went from neutrally optimistic to full pessimistic. It
highlighted everything wrong with what people think makes an adult animated
project. Excessive swearing, graphic violence, needless anti-religion subject
matter and vulgarity for the sake of being vulgar. That was the film I was
expecting…and surprisingly, that wasn’t the film I got. Don’t get me wrong,
there are still plenty wrong with this movie. But the changes they made turned
it from something horrible to something more tolerable.
The story is about the lives of anthropomorphic food live in a
supermarket. They believe that the customers are gods who will take them
outside the store, or as they call it, the Great Beyond. In a song composed by
Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast), the food in the
different aisles sing about what they think happens in the Great Beyond. For
our main protagonist Frank the hot dog(Voice by the film’s writer, Seth Rogen),
he’s been taught that he and his fellow sausages will be freed from their packaging.
Giving him the freedom to consummate his love to a plump bun named Brenda
(Voiced by the always hilarious Kristen Wiig). Frank experiences some doubts
about the belief system despite how hyped his friends are to finally fill up
the buns. And yes, it leads to a LOT of innuendo. So if you’re tired of genital
humor, this film will quickly annoy you. After a jar of honey mustard is
returned by a customer, he tries to warn Frank and his friends about the
horrible plans the gods of in store for them. One cart crash and Saving Private
Ryan spoof later, Frank and his girlfriend are separated from their friends,
now stuck with a bickering Lavash wrap and a bagel incarnation of Woody Allen,
minus the sexism and uncomfortable attraction towards younger women. While they
all want to return to their aisles in the hopes that another god will purchase
them, Frank wants answers to his questions. As he discovers the truth of why he
and his friends exist, he tries to tell everyone the horrible truth while
avoiding an angry douche (Yes. Literally the feminine hygiene product) who
speaks with a jersey accent and refers to everyone as “Bro”.
I guess it’s pretty obvious from the summery that the film
deals with the controversial topics of Religion as well as the debate on God’s
existence. In the earlier draft, the film had a real nu atheism tone in its
message. But in the final version, it tries to be more on the fence with its
subject matter. As Frank warning towards the products of their fate, most don’t
believe him. And that really angers him to the point where his warning turns
into an argument. But he learns very quickly that his outburst towards them
made him no better than the religious zealots. Frank decided to focus less on
what everyone else believes in as he convinces them to work together in order
to make it out of the insane finale of the film. (And it gets quite meta.) It’s
pretty refreshing that a film about the existence of God debate tries to
abandon its “Us vs Them” mentality and try to tell both sides of the argument
not to be a pompous jerk. We don’t know what comes next so let’s try to make it
through this life together. But the message about tolerance gets bogged down by
its heavy reliance on ethnic and sexual stereotypes. There are a slew of food
products that represent a heavily dated stereotype, whether they’re sauerkraut singing
about exterminating the juice, or fruit talking VERY flamboyantly. They’re so
common in the film that even Seth Macfarlane would go “Guys…you’re being pretty
insensitive here.” Lavash and the bagel even have arguments that are painfully
obvious metaphors for conflict in the Middle East. It really goes against your
message about tolerance when most of your characters are racist and homophobic
stereotypes that can really cause more damage to your audience then make them
laugh!
So with somewhat angry rant about how politically incorrect this
film is, you’d think I really hate this film. Well…some parts of it. The
animation is super cartoony and there are a ton of visual gags that smack you
right in the face so fast, you might miss them if you blink. It’s almost like
something out of an old Looney Tunes cartoon…the infamous censored 11 Looney
Tunes maybe. But we were so close to getting this raunchy cartoon comedy about
religious tolerance and unity and it had to go and throw in stereotypes for the
sake of stereotypes! But I guess it could have been as worst as the leaked
script, giving us a horrible vision of what could have been. It at least tries
to bring a little bit of outsider humility to the heated debate on religion.
I know this is insane. I’m trying to stick up for Sausage Party
of all films. And I’m only calling it average at best! But for what I was
expecting, I was a bit surprised by what I got A film, though somewhat
misguided, is saying how we should try to look past how we think and look and
instead try to come together. In a way that looks like it was taken from a
scene out of Caligula that makes them deserve the R rating. Come to think of
it, we sort of dealt with these subjects in another animated movie. Didn’t we?
Yeah it’s no comparison that Zootopia dealt with this subject matter of
tolerance a lot better and more grown up ironically more than this film has.
But Sausage Party is the ultimate case of “Don’t throw the baby out with the
bath water.” It shows that after years of struggling to create something
different, no matter how terrible it is during the conception, you can still put
out of something that surprisingly has substance when everyone is expecting a
dud. You almost have to admire their ambition. If this film is a success and
Hollywood does decided to be more open minded with whom animation can appeal
to, I hope it encourages more writers from different genres to consider the
potential this medium has to execute their ideas.
If you want a comedy that’s more modern and tries something
new, you’re are not going to like this. But if you’re thinking, “I don’t care
how ridiculous or juvenile it is. I just want some shock worthy laughs with a
side of philosophy” Then Sausage Party will wet whatever sick twisted appetite
you might have.
2 ½ out of 4 stars.
