Sausage Party’s vulgar nature is clearly designed to offend those with a more conservative mentality, but the most offensive thing about the film is that it’s not particularly funny. It’s a mediocre comedic exercise. Its sense of humor calls to mind a 5th grader who’s just discovered curse words and wants to see how far he can push the grown-ups around him before they snap. If you’ve desired nothing more in life than to see cartoon sausages, buns, mustard cans, etc. saying the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ over and over again, then Sausage Party will function as nothing less than a transcendent experience. The directors, Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, and the writers Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, have set the film up to rely exclusively on the shock value of watching cartoons say dirty things and make ceaseless sexual innuendos. They neglected, however, to provide any actual jokes.
The film follows the exploits of a sausage named Frank who lives in a grocery store and, along with the other sausages in his package, desires nothing more than to be picked by the ‘gods’ (humans) and taken to the Great Beyond where eternal bliss awaits. He’s hopelessly in love with Brenda, a hot dog bun whose package sits right next to his. They’re both picked by a 'god' but a horrible accident results in their being separated from the group. As they journey to find their display stand, they uncover a terrible truth: the ‘gods’ are vicious, cruel beings that kill food instead of providing salvation. Frank takes it upon himself to warn the rest of the rest of the food in the market before it’s too late.
Sausage Party contains a few great one-liners and some inspired visual gags, but there are too few of them. For the most part, the film is deadly dull, the humor obvious and lazy. For example: at the end of a villainous speech, the antagonist asks the hero, “How do you like them apples?” Nearby, a batch of apples says, “Who – US??”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is as clever as Sausage Party gets.
All it has going for it is its raunch and it devotes its entire being to emphasizing it. The plot and characters play second fiddle. To the filmmakers, nothing seems to be funnier than foul language and visual innuendos. (The sausages want to get inside the buns. The buns look like vaginas. Get it??) It’s about as juvenile as can be. Screenwriters Rogen and Goldberg have, in their more successful efforts, elevated raunch to an artform (Superbad, This is the End). Here, their attempts fall painfully flat. The mediocre punchlines were met with long stretches of silence from the audience I saw the film with. Not even the talented voice cast, which includes the likes of Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, Salma Hayek, Jonah Hill and Edward Norton, can make the material work.
Running throughout the film is a subtext which condemns the notion of belief systems entirely. The film preaches that no one should follow a belief system and be free to do what they want, seemingly ignoring the irony that this notion in and of itself is a belief system. Instead of feeling fresh or thoughtful, it comes across as heavy-handed, obnoxious and half-baked. Sausage Party’s ‘moral-of-the-story’ ends up feeling just as explicit and annoying as the religions it condemns, fitting right in with the hit-you-over-the-head theology in one of those dreadful Christian products, i.e. God’s Not Dead.
To sum it up, Sausage Party is a rotten experience. It’s not smart enough to convey its message in a meaningful way and not nearly funny enough to justify its viewing experience. Its over-reliance on shock value (and schlock value) over worthwhile characters or an involving plot hold it back from greatness. It’s not even remotely close to greatness. In fact, it stands out as one of the worst films I’ve seen this year. How do you like THEM apples?
FINAL RATING: 1.5/5
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