1474. Sausage Party (2016)

Starring: Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill

Director: Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon

Running Time: 89 mins

Sausage Party is an American film about the world of supermarket food, who believe that being bought by humans allows them to go to the ‘Great Beyond’. However, when one sausage discovers the truth, he and his fellow foods go into a panic as they realise their entire lives have been a lie.

This film is a desperately sad example of taking a great idea and taking it way too far. As much as I was looking forward to swearing animated food, I was stunned at how quickly the shock value wore off in Sausage Party, and with such a thin story, I was bored out of my mind for the majority of the film. It may pick up in a hectic final act, but overall, I was massively disappointed with how this film completely wasted such an exciting concept.

Let me explain what I mean by going too far. Within the very first sentence of this film starting, where a sausage swears a good five times, I knew that the film had already blown its load. Of course, I was expecting excessive profanity, but the way that Sausage Party launches immediately into its main attraction, taking away any modicum of shock value, was so disappointing to see.

And from then on, there’s no stopping it. I’ll give the film credit for being fast-paced and confident in its delivery, but the fact that it features so little good comedy, and only uses juvenile innuendo and profanity to make up for that was so frustrating. On the whole, as fun as the premise for Sausage Party seemed at the beginning, the film’s over-saturation of it was a huge mistake that turns it into one of the most repetitive and boring comedies I’ve ever seen.

Another thing I have to point out is that this film doesn’t ‘go too far’ with regards to offensive humour. Normally, I admire risky, dark comedy, however Sausage Party’s attempts to do anything of the sort are deeply misguided. It’s incredibly annoying to see the film go about satire with so little intelligence or wit, but what makes it worse is that the comedy just isn’t risky enough.

Save for the final scene, where the film does go all-out on an insane and pretty shocking joke (although it still beats that into the ground like every other joke), the comedy here is actually very light. Sure, there are allusions to Nazis, the Arab-Israeli Conflict, religion and all sorts of controversial subjects, but the film doesn’t really do much to take a risky perspective on them, just uses them as allegories to the food-centred story, which was yet another huge disappointment.

All in all, this film is hugely flawed in its delivery. A great concept is ruined by a screenplay that gets over-excited too early on, and ends up beating all its best jokes and ideas into dust by the end of its very short runtime. The final act is an improvement, once everybody stops swearing like a 14 year-old, and is actually an entertaining watch, whilst the voice performances add a little bit of charisma. However, the fact that the screenplay is so unfunny for so long, and especially because it relentlessly fires mishits at you, Sausage Party is a desperately dull and annoying watch. It’s by no means hateful or offensive, and passes 89 minutes well, but it’s by no means the work of comic genius that its premise suggested it should be, and that’s why it’s getting a 5.0 from me.