Sausage Party - Review

All of the food products at a supermarket, who are secretly sentient and mysteriously have clothed appendages, live in private bliss until they can be "chosen" by a human being and be brought to "The Great Beyond". One day before they can celebrate "Red, White, and Blue Day" together, a hot dog (Seth Rogen) and his bun girlfriend (Kristen Wiig) get entangled in a shopping cart with a returned jar of honey mustard, who seeks to change everyone's perspective about what lies past the motorized doors. SAUSAGE PARTY is an absolutely hilarious adult animated film that expertly combines crude blue humor with theology of all things. Characters will engage in dirty talk one minute only to then spin the discussion into what they think and believe will happen in the afterlife. The fact that this heavy and filthy dialogue is coming from groceries is just one thing that makes this a humorous romp. From its brilliant Disney-esque opening tune, with music by Alan Menken no less, to the great improv-friendly voice cast, to the cartoonishly harsh violence, to its jaw-dropping climax (wink wink), the movie is a double-barrel blast of bawdiness. Many will likely be turned off by the rampant juvenile ribbing, however, as it can be a bit too much to ingest and swallow easily. For myself, I was not a huge fan by the inclusion of Douche, who's literally a douche and whose Jersey Shore voice is supplied by Nick Kroll. Despite some great gags with him, including a running joke involving puns, Douche really didn't need to be in the story, as his antagonistic ways take the focus off of the main debate between the food people and their "gods". Additionally, the film does have a weird handle with incorporating pop songs into the action and its true ending, though clever, frankly spoils the grand finale. Nevertheless, if you want a comedy with a brain, see some shade thrown at Christian cinema, animation that breaks the "kids only" mentality that still plagues our American society, and/or want something to snug itself perfectly between Patton Oswalt's "Sky Cake" routine and a DVD copy of FOODFIGHT!, this is for you.


FINAL REVIEW: 4 / 5