Monday, October 3, 2016

Sausage Party

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.