DIRECTOR: Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernan LEAD CAST: Seth
Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, James Franco,
Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll,
David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, Salma Hayek
PRODUCER: Megan Ellison,
Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Conrad Vernon SCREENWRITER: Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen, Evan
Goldberg MUSIC: Alan Menken, Christopher Lennertz STORY: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jonah Hill EDITOR: Kevin Pavlovic GENRE:
Computer-Animation, Adult Comedy PRODUCTION COMPANY: Annapurna Pictures, Point Grey Pictures DISTRIBUTOR:
Columbia Pictures
COUNTRY: United States LANGUAGE: English RUNNING TIME: 88 minutes
Technical assessment:
3.5
Moral assessment: 1.5
CINEMA rating:
V18
MTRCB: R18
In this adult comedy, the
products on the shelf of Shopwell supermarket have only one hope in life: that
they be “chosen” and purchased by the gods (human shoppers) who will transport
them to “the great beyond”. A sausage,
Frank (voiced by Seth Rogan) and his girlfriend, Brenda (voiced by Kristen
Wiig), a comely hot dog bun, can hardly wait for the day they can break free
from their packaging and be together happily-ever-after in “the great beyond”—meanwhile
they are content touching fingertips when no one’s looking. The products’ anticipation is heightened as
the Fourth of July shoppers prepare for the holidays. Then Honey-Mustard (voiced by Danny McBride) gets
returned and, horrified by what he has seen in a god’s kitchen, warns the
others that outside of the supermarket there is only death and consumption. Nobody believes him, and when he gets chosen
again, he commits suicide by jumping off the shopping cart, breaking his jar
and spilling his guts on the floor. This
causes a collision and as all hell breaks loose the douche (voiced by Nick
Kroll) breaks his nozzle; blaming Frank for it, he swears revenge.
Comedy being a very
subjective medium, Sausage Party may
be abhorred by some, adored by others, but its inventiveness cannot be denied. Talking supermarket “citizens” are so cleverly
conceived and utilized to highlight or poke fun at issues affecting humans and humanity. One may not agree with what Sausage Party is saying but one must
admit it’s driving its point home clearly and emphatically with humor, albeit
potty at times. Helping spice up the
movie is not just one but four screenwriters putting their heads together and
making a mouthpiece of supermarket objects to broadcast their views on, for instance,
the Israel-Palestine conflict (using a bagel and a lavash), immigration
problems (using smuggled canned goods from Mexico), the holocaust (using the
German sauerkraut who wants to “exterminate the juice”), same-sex attraction
(using an empty taco shell’s lust for a bun who rejects her in the belief that only
a sausage can fulfill a bun), religion (using a native American character in a
whisky bottle, Firewater, who admits he invented the idea of the gods and the
great beyond), etc.
Being amused or entertained
by Sausage Party does not
necessarily mean buying what it sells. Relentless
in its profanity and shameless about its sex talk, the movie, although clad in cartoony
satire, has an atheistic premise that can’t be missed: if we all but forget about
our differences and then unite to defeat our common enemy, we will be victors;
and our common enemy here is the gods who lie to us in order to use us, the
gods we worship who feed us illusions to make us willingly do their bidding. With “the great beyond” revealed as a hoax, a
rebellion is staged by the products until all the gods are dead. The movie champions its perception of tolerance
and finding happiness here and now—which means orgiastic partying as if there’s
no tomorrow. Sausage Party’s makers attempt a sophisticated conclusion featuring
Gum, a wad of chewing gum in a motorized wheelchair—obviously spoofing the
genius Stephen Hawking—that tells the anthropomorphic grocery items they are
mere cartoons and if they want to meet their creators and voice actors in
another dimension they must go through this portal. So—from disillusion to hope, from one “great
beyond” to another? If their intention
was to inject some soul into the movie, they fail. Sausage
Party does not deserve a soul.
