Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon
Written by Kyle Hunter (screenplay) & Ariel Shaffir (screenplay) & Seth Rogen (screenplay and story) & Evan Goldberg (screenplay and story) & Jonah Hill (story)
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, Sugar Lyn Beard, Anders Holm, Harland Williams
Soundtrack: Christopher Lennertz and Alan Menken
It would be a lie to say that ‘Sausage Party’ is completely lacking in creativity, as there are many imaginative visuals and a handful of jokes that are at least somewhat funny and clever.
However, and with respect to Tim League, it would also be a lie to say that ‘Sausage Party’ is “the ‘Blazing Saddles’ of our generation.” That’s a bit like comparing ‘Revenge of the Sith’ to ‘Citizen Kane’. Sure, ‘Blazing Saddles‘ has a lot of subversive commentary, but it’s nicely blended in to a [mostly] cohesive comedic story; it wasn’t a thinly-veiled effort at megaphoning a specific agenda (‘Blazing Saddles’ is also legitimately hilarious).
I feel a bit strange talking about this, because I rarely, if ever, get into discussion of messages in movies I review, but ‘Sausage Party’ has forced my hand.
Before we get to that though, let me first cover some standard ground.
The premise of ‘Sausage Party’ is that all of the food (along with some non-perishable items) at our local supermarket is alive, similar to the toys in ‘Toy Story’, and they await being chosen by us in order to enter the great beyond. The hard truth, of course, is that we just eat it, and it’s up to one brave sausage to shed light on this and take the humans down.
If this sounds like a comedy set-up that doesn’t resolve, it’s because it doesn’t; which makes the whole exercise rather pointless, which I guess is what the filmmakers were going for, which brings me back to my main point.
The “tl;dr” version of what ‘Sausage Party’ is really about is simply this: religion is stupid, and Stephen Hawking is our true savior. Not to mention that we should give in to every desire we have because moral constructs aren’t real. Sure, sometimes the movie randomly splashes into other topics, but by and large it does everything it can to hammer its true message home.
You’d think that ‘Sausage Party’ would be able to handle its social commentary more seamlessly because it’s a silly animated film, but, again, the core concept of the story is so nonsensical and unresolvable that it makes the real motive of the movie that much clearer. Honestly, it would work better as a series of non sequitur shorts, rather than trying to stretch it to a single feature-length film.
Ultimately, I don’t find ‘Sausage Party’ offensive because it’s offensive, I find it offensive because it’s so obvious, in addition to not being very funny. Honestly, I was in a full theater on opening night, and there wasn’t one moment where the entire audience erupted with laughter, so I know it’s not just me.
‘Sausage Party’ isn’t the worst film I’ve ever seen, there were some funny moments I liked here and there, but, as an entire movie, I absolutely cannot recommend it. It’s too juvenile and too crass without the intelligence to back it up, but worst of all it’s utterly transparent in its intentions.
There’s a big difference between wannabe smart and actually smart, kids.
Rating: ★½ (out of five)