I honestly didn't think I'd like this movie nearly as much as I actually do. I went in essentially expecting a typical Seth Rogan comedy, just random jokes and nothing else. But the rumors were true, it actually is more clever than it has any right to be.
I'll first say this, I don't think everyone will find it funny. If you aren't already a fan of Seth Rogan's movies, like I am, the humor probably won't do much for you. But I don't think anyone can deny that the movie's story is very smart, and I think might make up for some of the negatives you may have about the movie. The early reviews were right, it has a lot of clever things to say about religion, about taboos in society, about bigotry between cultures, and it's not lazy about any of these subjects.
Let me talk about the jokes for a second. Yes there are plenty of sexual jokes in it, a lot of which I found funny. But I think the majority of the laughs I had came from the different ethnic foods interacting with each other. I could watch the Bagel and Lavash argue with each other all day. If anything I think the majority of the sort of sexual jokes people expect from the movie happen at the very end, like the last 10 minutes of the movie.
The voice acting is also top notch. All the voices fit well with every character in the movie. I would love to see all of the actors in this in other animated roles. Some of the actors play there roles so well I had no idea which character they were. I had no idea that Edward Norton was the Bagel, or that Paul Rudd was the main Grocery Store employee. They all give great performances.
But don't get me wrong, there are problems. Probably the major one being that the villain really doesn't need to be there. He just kind of serves to be a slightly disturbing character, who sucks out other products' juice to become stronger. If they cut him out of the movie we wouldn't have missed anything, apart from a few jokes from him. Also the ending is very, well, an ending, in that it ends the movie. It's one of those endings I wouldn't really describe as "bad" or "good" it's just sort of "I don't really know how else they could have ended it, so yeah I guess that works."
The animation isn't all that great either, I mean it's not awful, but it really shows that this is this particular company's first animated film. One thing in particular that put me off was the designs on the human characters, they're so hideous to look at. I have a feeling that's part of the joke, but they really do look gross, and off-putting.
There is one more thing I have to say though. In the long run I'm a little worried about the impact this might have on other R rated animated movies. I'm a little worried that this might affect other movies in a similar fashion as how Shrek affected kids movies. Like how Shrek was funny and made a lot of money, so other studios, and Dreamworks themselves, tried to replicate the success, and we ended up getting really bad "Self-Aware Parody" movies like Chicken Little. I just don't want the same thing to happen with this movie.
I wouldn't call this movie "typical Adult Swim fodder" like I thought I'd be calling it. It's too clever to deserve that label. It's a movie that actually understands what "Satire" is, and in a day and age where we have people just posting racial obscenities and calling it "satire" when called out on it, I think it's great to see an R rated animated movie actually understand how to do satire.
I would recommend giving this movie a chance. I really respect that it doesn't just throw crap at the wall and expects you to laugh. I wouldn't go as far as to call this one of my favorite animated movies of all time, but I will say I'm glad I saw it, and I had a lot of fun watching it. I would give this movie an 8/10. It's not one of the greatest movies ever made, but I do respect it, and I want to see more good R rated animated movies come out of it.
I'll first say this, I don't think everyone will find it funny. If you aren't already a fan of Seth Rogan's movies, like I am, the humor probably won't do much for you. But I don't think anyone can deny that the movie's story is very smart, and I think might make up for some of the negatives you may have about the movie. The early reviews were right, it has a lot of clever things to say about religion, about taboos in society, about bigotry between cultures, and it's not lazy about any of these subjects.
Let me talk about the jokes for a second. Yes there are plenty of sexual jokes in it, a lot of which I found funny. But I think the majority of the laughs I had came from the different ethnic foods interacting with each other. I could watch the Bagel and Lavash argue with each other all day. If anything I think the majority of the sort of sexual jokes people expect from the movie happen at the very end, like the last 10 minutes of the movie.
The voice acting is also top notch. All the voices fit well with every character in the movie. I would love to see all of the actors in this in other animated roles. Some of the actors play there roles so well I had no idea which character they were. I had no idea that Edward Norton was the Bagel, or that Paul Rudd was the main Grocery Store employee. They all give great performances.
But don't get me wrong, there are problems. Probably the major one being that the villain really doesn't need to be there. He just kind of serves to be a slightly disturbing character, who sucks out other products' juice to become stronger. If they cut him out of the movie we wouldn't have missed anything, apart from a few jokes from him. Also the ending is very, well, an ending, in that it ends the movie. It's one of those endings I wouldn't really describe as "bad" or "good" it's just sort of "I don't really know how else they could have ended it, so yeah I guess that works."
The animation isn't all that great either, I mean it's not awful, but it really shows that this is this particular company's first animated film. One thing in particular that put me off was the designs on the human characters, they're so hideous to look at. I have a feeling that's part of the joke, but they really do look gross, and off-putting.
There is one more thing I have to say though. In the long run I'm a little worried about the impact this might have on other R rated animated movies. I'm a little worried that this might affect other movies in a similar fashion as how Shrek affected kids movies. Like how Shrek was funny and made a lot of money, so other studios, and Dreamworks themselves, tried to replicate the success, and we ended up getting really bad "Self-Aware Parody" movies like Chicken Little. I just don't want the same thing to happen with this movie.
I wouldn't call this movie "typical Adult Swim fodder" like I thought I'd be calling it. It's too clever to deserve that label. It's a movie that actually understands what "Satire" is, and in a day and age where we have people just posting racial obscenities and calling it "satire" when called out on it, I think it's great to see an R rated animated movie actually understand how to do satire.
I would recommend giving this movie a chance. I really respect that it doesn't just throw crap at the wall and expects you to laugh. I wouldn't go as far as to call this one of my favorite animated movies of all time, but I will say I'm glad I saw it, and I had a lot of fun watching it. I would give this movie an 8/10. It's not one of the greatest movies ever made, but I do respect it, and I want to see more good R rated animated movies come out of it.