Sausage Party (2016)

Sausage Party (2016)

Dir: Conrad Vernon & Greg Tiernan

Forewarning: Do not see this film with your parents!

A new Seth Rogen comedy has been released revolving around sentient supermarket food contemplating their existence and fantasising about what lies past the ‘The Great Beyond’. Seth Rogen and friends are all cast again in this completely absurd, uncensored adventure. Whilst subverting the conventional view of Western studio animated films and making full usage of their uncensored label. Ideally seen in the opening sequence with an exuberant song full of R-rated dialogue. It’s safe to say that this film when looking at the plot and trailer objectively, there is no way this film should work. But it does and it does it strangely well.

Now I’ve found Seth Rogen to have this tendency throughout his career with comedy, especially with his writing capabilities, to have a ‘very good’ film that is then then followed by a ‘very poor’ film. He’s only ever reached the heights of a brilliant film with Superbad, which is still one my all-time favourite comedy features. Sausage Party conceptually however is so odd that you feel this film only came about when Seth Rogen and his friends were sat around together smoking marijuana and spit balling such random ideas that the story evolved from one drug filled conversation to the next. Yet through this illogical premise, the unpredictability of Sausage Party was one of its best aspects. I was hooked because of the amount of left turns the narrative took.

Not having any idea where the story was going was such a great part of the movie that I was not expecting. Primarily because when the trailers were dropped it gave the impression that the film would be molded around a survival type story line. Given that the one sequence in the kitchen (‘they’re eating children’) was prevalent in most of the trailers. Though as I said, the unpredictability of this entire film bled into its advertisement, which was so refreshing because so many films are ruined by their trailers (*cough* BvS).

I’m trying not to give too much away as always, but I really enjoyed Sausage Party. For the demographic this film is aiming at, the youthful target audience will love this film. The relentlessly crude euphemisms navigated between cute political and religious references, all the while taking left turns are taken in the plot keep the audience members on edge and laughing. Enthralling yet stupid, the literal climax of the film typifies how this film did not take any liberties and just did whatever it wanted to.

The combination between the gratuitousness of Happy Tree Friends, the stupidity of Toy Soldiers and the edge of most Seth Rogen films is an unusual mix but I found it to be refreshing and hilarious. It’s not a ground breaking animated film by any stretch but it is incredibly funny and that’s the be all and end all to any comedy feature.