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Review – Sausage Party (15) [2016]

Posted on September 14, 2016 | Leave a comment

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Star Rating: 3.5/5

Directors:

  • Greg Tiernan – Thomas & Friends
  • Conrad Vernon – Shrek II, Monsters vs Aliens, Madagascar III

Cast:

  • Seth Rogan – Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, This Is The End, Steve Jobs, Neighbours II: Sorority Rising
  • Kristen Wiig – Date Night, Paul, Her, The Martian, Masterminds
  • Jonah Hill – Knocked Up, Superbad, 21 & 22 Jump Street, The Wolf of Wall Street, MIB 23
  • Michael Cera – Superbad, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Magic Mike, This Is The End, Human People
  • James Franco – Date Night, 127 Hours, Your Highness, The Rise of Planet of The Apes, This Is The End, The Mad Whale
  • Salma Hayek – Frida, Puss In Boots, Here Comes The Boom, Grown Ups I-II, Drunk Parents
  • Edward Norton – American History X, Fight Club, The Invention of Lying, Birdman, Collateral Beauty
  • Paul Rudd – Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Monsters vs Aliens, This Is The End, Captain America III, Mute
  • Nick Kroll – I Love You, Man, Date Night, Get Him To The Greek, Knight of Cups, Captain Underpants
  • David Krumholtz – Superbad, The Playboy Club, This Is The End, The Judge, Casual Encounters

Music Composers:

  • Christopher Lennertz – Horrible Bosses I & II, Ride Along I & II, My Big Fat Greek Wedding II, Bad Moms, The Boss
  • Alan Menken – Beauty & The Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Enchanted, Beauty & The Beast

Ever wondered what an R-rated animated comedy looks like? No, probably not. That’s why Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill, along with three other writers, have come together to bring us Sausage Party. And full credit to them for doing so!

Frank (Seth Rogan) in a packet with other sausages,waiting to be picked by a god (a human). He hopes to be picked with his girlfriend, Brenda the bun (Kristen Wiig) so that they can live together in the Great Beyond.

Frank (Seth Rogan) in a packet with other sausages,waiting to be picked by a god (a human). He hopes to be picked with his girlfriend, Brenda the bun (Kristen Wiig) so that they can live together in the Great Beyond.

Sausage Party predominantly revolves round Frank (voiced by Seth Rogan). Frank is a sausage in a supermarket. Trapped inside a packet with near a dozen other sausages he yearns to be picked by one of the gods (i.e. the humans) and taken to the Great Beyond (i.e. out of the supermarket). It is said that paradise awaits the food that gets picked by humans. However, no food has ever come back to tell the tale. Frank wants to be picked so he can find out and live with his girlfriend, Brenda the bun (voiced by Kristen Wiig), in this supposed paradise.

The plot for Sausage Party might sound utterly absurd, but it is so funny. From start to finish, one cannot help but laugh. Often, one may laugh with embarrassment. But laugh, one will. Indeed, even those who usually cannot stand other (non-animated) films of this genre, such as Superbad, Pineapple Express and 21 & 22 Jump Street can still find Sausage Party very amusing. This is because animation is a different artistic medium and can get away with some of the jokes that real life cannot.

The same is true for the Toy Story movies and for The Simpsons TV-series. While Sausage Party is not on the same intellectual level as those franchises, the movie is not stupid and contains a lot of satire. The Great Beyond is a metaphor for the next world (if it exists) and the search for meaning in life. This is something that all audiences can relate to, regardless of the fact that they are watching non-sentient objects. Moreover, during Frank’s journey, he meets a bagel-shaped Jew (voiced by Edward Norton) and a lavash-shaped Muslim (voiced by David Krumholtz) who don’t want to share an isle; a sauerkraut that looks like Hitler that wants to ‘exterminate the juice’; a meat loaf, voiced by Meat Loaf, singing ‘I’d Do Anything For Love’; a Native-American Indian-looking Firewater, who smokes weed and claims to know ‘The Truth’ about the Great Beyond; and a villainous douche called ‘Il Douche’ (voiced by Nick Kroll), among countless others. All bring their own unique comedic elements to the film, and these satires enrich the experience for viewers tremendously.

Frank and Brenda walking around the supermarket along with a bagel (Edward Norton) and a lavash (David Krumholtz). Typically, the bagel and the lavash do not see eye to eye on anything.

Frank and Brenda walking around the supermarket along with a bagel (Edward Norton) and a lavash (David Krumholtz). Typically, the bagel and the lavash do not see eye to eye on anything.

Granted Sausage Party puts forward these satires with the subtlety of a brick through glass. But that does not make them any less funny, it just makes them crude and borderline offensive. Then again, if one is offended by crude humour, this is the wrong film for such a person. In fact, if one is offended by political incorrectness or racial stereotyping, or juvenile, crass, misogynistic and chauvinistic humour, this film is not for such person. The ensemble cast (and their film resumes) should have told such a person to stay away from this movie. And if he/she did not realise this from the cast, one need only look at Brenda the bun to get a sense of what he/she would be in for as the bun looks (unapologetically) like a vagina.

However, regardless of how much one is amused or offended by Sausage Party, the film drags. For a movie that is often funny and only 89 minutes long, this entails that the film cannot hold its audience as well as it thinks it can. Nor is it as witty or stimulating as it fancies itself to be.

The villainous Il Douche (Nick Kroll), stomping around the supermarket. Il Douche is furious with Frank and wants revenge as he blames Frank for his deformed appearance.

The villainous Il Douche (Nick Kroll), stomping around the supermarket. Il Douche is furious with Frank and wants revenge as he blames Frank for his deformed appearance.

After an hour, the film’s lack of wittiness and stimulation is very much down to the sheer volume of swearing. Sausage Party has enough f-bombs to raise London to the ground. There is no need for that many. It undermines the movie as, after a while, the humour (or lack thereof) becomes repetitive and uncreative… that is until the last scene. No-one can fault Sausage Party for a lack of creativity or stimulation by the end, when a (jaw-dropping) food orgy breaks out. If one ever wondered what an R-rated animation looks like, it is the final scene here because it is more pornographic than pornography.

All-in-all, Sausage Party is a very funny film. The movie becomes tedious after the hour mark and there is undoubtedly too much swearing in it. Nevertheless, it is original and innovative. And for all the film’s obscenity, vulgarity, crassness, crudity, misogyny, chauvinism, sexism, borderline racism and satire, one cannot stop laughing despite himself/herself. All comedies, regardless of whether they are animated or not, are judged by how funny they are, and Sausage Party is absolutely hilarious.

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Review – 22 Jump Street (15) [2014]

Posted on July 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

22 Jump Street - title banner2

Star Rating: 2.5/5

Directors:

  • Phil Lord and Christopher Miller – Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie

Cast:

Music Composer:

  • Mark Mothersbaugh – 21 Jump Street, Last Vegas, The Lego Movie, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs I & II

2012’s 21 Jump Street was juvenile, crass, vulgar, patronising, stupid, misogynistic, irritating, and seldom amusing. It also did inexplicably well at the box office. So what could one have expected from a sequel? Well, more of the same really.

Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) arrive at college to unearth who is behind the drugs operation there.

Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) arrive at college to unearth who is behind the drugs operation there.

22 Jump Street is a comedy that is a carbon copy of its prequel. But this time, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are not sent back to high school by Ice Cube to bust a drugs operation (as if anyone believed that Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill were high school students); they are sent to college.

22 Jump Street employs exactly the same plot as well as the same juvenile, crass and stupid humour as its prequel. However, this time, audiences are prepared for the movie’s utter inanity and so won’t be (unpleasantly) surprised by it.

Also, the film has a surprisingly good climax and the ending scene(s) of the film are probably the funniest bits of the movie (which says something about the rest of it). That is not to say that one won’t laugh during the film. 22 Jump Street continuously mocks itself (and several superhero movies at the same time) by explicitly confessing that it is a sequel devoid of ideas (unlike so many other sequels that are equally devoid of ideas, only they refuse to admit it). Nevertheless, by 22 Jump Street stating that it is ripping itself off, viewers are likely to loosen their guards at an early stage. This means they’re likely to laugh a few more times than they thought they might have done prior to seeing the film.

Schmidt meets the nice Maya (Amber Stevens) who does little in the film other than smile and look pretty.

Schmidt meets the nice Maya (Amber Stevens) who does little in the film other than smile and look pretty.

Just like the plot, the acting and the dialogue in 22 Jump Street are illogical, and both would be staggering if the two lead actors did not have such great chemistry on screen. Indeed, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill look they had a whale of a time making the movie (which, invariably for a comedy, means that the film won’t be very funny) and it is not as if they play their roles badly, either. Tatum does a decent job as the stupid, popular jock; and Jonah Hill (once again) shows us that he is the go-to-man when a director needs a crude, stupid slob, who (predictably) makes every fat joke that can be found on the internet. (Seriously, Hill, you are a smart guy. When are you going to gain some dignity and stop doing these roles?)

Of the rest of the cast, Ice Cube again spends his entire time on screen shouting and swearing (because shouting and swearing per se is funny, right?). Amber Stevens is merely there to be eye candy; Wyatt Russell is solely there to be the third wheel in a bromance love triangle that quickly grates on the nerves; and Dave Franco and Rob Riggle make cameo appearances (to add fifteen minutes onto the film’s running time and) so audiences can be reminded of what these two (idiots) did in the first film (just in case viewers have suffered amnesia in the last two years).

Jenko getting drunk at a party, whilst striking up a friendship with his American football team-mate, Zook (Wyatt Russell), much to Schmidt's jealousy.

Jenko getting drunk at a party, whilst striking up a friendship with his American football team-mate, Zook (Wyatt Russell), much to Schmidt’s jealousy.

Otherwise, the music used throughout the film feels random and oddly timed, if not out of place. But, hey, 22 Jump Street is a comedy that has little discipline, sense of timing or intelligence, so why should the music be any different?

All-in-all, 22 Jump Street is certainly as juvenile, crass, patronising, stupid and irritating as its prequel. But it is less vulgar and misogynistic, plus a little funnier than 21 Jump Street. Undoubtedly, this is because of 22 Jump Street’s self-derision; because audiences have become used to the film’s sense of humour (if one can call it that); and because viewers have somehow come to like the two central characters for the fools they are.

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Review – 21 Jump Street (15) [2012]

Posted on March 20, 2012 | 10 comments

Star Rating: 2/5

Last year’s The Inbetweeners Movie was a genuinely funny comedy. Whilst lacking in subtlety, it had a fine mix of intelligent and dim-witted humour, as well as realistic characters and a (semi-)plausible storyline. But in recent years many ‘comedies,’ like Due Date and The Hangover: Part II, have lacked much of what made The Inbetweeners Movie so enjoyable. 21 Jump Street, despite a few instances of amusement, very much goes into the latter category of ‘comedies.’

Jenko (Channing Tatum) bullying Schmidt (Jonah Hill) in their high school days. They did not get on at all whilst they were in the same class.

21 Jump Street is loosely based on the 1987-91 TV series with the same title, which starred a young and then-little known Johnny Depp. 21 Jump Street is about two very dissimilar 1980s former high school classmates. Jenko (Channing Tatum – The Eagle, The Vow, Side Effects) was the well-liked, yet brainless jock, whilst Schmidt (Jonah Hill – Superbad, Moneyball, The Wolf of Wall Street) was the smart, but unpopular nerd.

Despite their differences, Jenko and Schmidt quickly become friends after enrolling in the police academy. Once they finish their course, they become partners on patrol.

However, Jenko and Schmidt are hopeless at their jobs. Subsequently, they are sent to an undercover unit, located on 21 Jump Street. It is there that they’re ordered by their new superior, Captain Dickson (Ice Cube – Ghosts of Mars, XXX2, Rampart), to discover who is behind a drug network that is allegedly based in their former high school. So Jenko and Schmidt go back to their old stomping plain (to find, to their shock, that what was popular in the late-1980s is not anymore), posing as students, to bust the drug dealership before it spreads to other schools.

The plot for 21 Jump Street is simple as well as amusing on a couple of occasions. In addition, the friendship between Jenko and Schmidt keeps viewers interested, due to the chemistry that the two actors share; and the shoot-out scenes are a good laugh and surprisingly gory as well.

Schmidt and Jenko, now friends and cops, apparently dressed as teenagers before going undercover into their old high school. Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) ordering them not to get with any school-girls or teachers.

Yet, there are fewer action scenes than one would have predicted; and, alas, the overwhelming majority of the humour revolves round repetitive, mindless jokes between the two main characters; swearing; and vulgarity. Of course all of this can be tolerable and hilarious in moderation. But the directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs), have taken it all (shamefully) to the point when even the crude Steven Stifler (played by Sean William Scott in the American Pie series) might call a halt.

Combined with such coarseness in 21 Jump Street are the performances of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as Jenko and Schmidt,  respectively. The pathetic and overly immature nature of their attempts to behave in a ‘high school manner’ is embarrassingly terrible. Compared to them, Jay Cartwright (played by James Buckley in The Inbetweeners TV series and movie) is a relative grown up! Both Tatum and Hill can do better than this, as the former demonstrated in Coach Carter, and the latter in Superbad and Moneyball.

The poverty of the acting in 21 Jump Street is not Tatum’s and Hill’s alone. Ice Cube; Dave Franco (Superbad, Fright Night, Warm Bodies), playing as Eric, the ‘cool-guy’ of the school; and Brie Larson (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Rampart, Relanxious), playing as Schmidt’s love interest, are all insipid and far from funny. The only noteworthy performer is Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean I-IV, The Tourist, Transcendence), who makes a surprise cameo appearance as his old character, DEA Tom Hanson. That was a clever move by the directors to bring him in. With the film dragging on for a hundred and ten minutes, Depp gives the movie some much needed unpredictability and impetus.

Likewise, it was intelligent of Lord and Miller to alter the dynamics of Jenko’s and Schmidt’s former high school. This entailed that the two main characters had to adapt to virtually new surroundings, which could have given Jenko and Schmidt another dimension to their, otherwise, shallow personalities.

Schmidt sitting with Molly (Brie Larson), the object of his fascination, as he tries to find a breakthrough and unearth who the drug suppliers are.

Yet, the directors badly under-developed these because they give little feel for how the school has changed. Worse, viewers are likely to ascertain almost no appreciation for this particular school or the American high school environment in general; especially, if one compares 21 Jump Street to the excellent Saved By The Bell series, or even the ‘chick flicks’ Mean Girls and John Tucker Must Die. All of those illustrated the different (albeit stereotypical) cliques, and the types of personalities within those cliques, that tend to exist in American high schools. But 21 Jump Street has almost none of it to the detriment of the movie.

Over-all, 21 Jump Street is a light-hearted film with two likeable main actors, who play daftly below their capabilities. The movie has a handful of laughable moments, but they’re overshadowed by the incessant obscene crudity that ruined ‘comedies’ like Due Date and The Hangover: Part II. Neither of those films made audiences cry with laughter as much, or as often as The Inbetweeners Movie. The same can be said for 21 Jump Street.

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