The team behind ‘Superbad’, ‘Pineapple Express’, and ‘This Is The End’ take animated family films to ungodly vulgar levels in ‘Sausage Party’.
Satire is a form of comedy that is hard to do successfully. There are a lot of elements to consider in crafting satire: the level of subtlety; the targets; how hard to attack; and actually being funny. The works of the Wayan Brothers (‘Scary Movie’ series) and Seth MacFarlane (‘Family Guy’) show what happens when satire is done poorly; instead coming across as vulgar and cruel. While ‘Sausage Party’ mines the same level of vulgarity, it also happens to hit its targets and remain hilarious throughout.
The world of ‘Sausage Party’ is a happy one. Set inside a supermarket, the food who occupies the shelves live in the hope of being chosen by a happy customer and taken to ‘The Great Beyond’. However, Frank The Sausage (Seth Rogen) and Brenda The Hot Dog Bun (Kristen Wiig) learn the horrifying truth about what happens in ‘The Great Beyond’. Frank, Brenda and a number of other friends they make in their journey, now must warn the rest of the supermarket about their true fate.
It should be no surprise from the film’s title that ‘Sausage Party’ lacks subtlety. Creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg continue to mine the area of vulgarity, with layers upon layers of sexual humour. While juvenile, it is impossible not to cry out with laughter.
The laughs are doubled thanks to the filth being spoken by such delightful, wide-eyed cartoon characters, including an antagonist who is a literal and figurative douche (Nick Kroll). This all comes to a high peak with the most unbelievable final scene in a film ever: one which had me literally gasping for air from laughing too hard.
The level of commitment to Pixar-esque animation is astonishing. Alongside the CGI, the storytelling and characters all share characteristics with these films: a happy world filled with inanimate objects come-to-life, with one character filled with conflicting emotions going on a journey of self-discovery, and returns with their new friends to fight together. Even the running time is short like a family film.
The commitment to the premise is so strong it’s shocking when something adult happens, from sex to quite horrific violence. One standout scene even shows an interaction with humans: something actively avoided in Pixar films. As outrageously funny as it is, the scene puts forward good cases as to why they hide from us, and why drugs are bad.
It’s not just Pixar who are the targets of mockery in this film. Alongside the mountain of innuendo, there are some far-from-subliminal messages about the role of religion in modern times. ‘Sausage Party’ covers a lot of ground, with issues such as atheism, blind faith and celibacy making their way in.
Even the opening song hides a deeper meaning, as we learn later on about it being part of a larger conspiracy, and sneaks in a message about how devotees reinterpret religious texts. Once they make it past some lazy racial stereotyping, there is a great message (another Pixar trope) about the divide between Jewish and Islamic faiths.
Even with the religious mockery, a further assessment shows another target in dark, internet-based theories behind popular cartoons, such as ‘Toy Story 3’ being an allegory for The Holocaust.
‘Sausage Party’ is a much smarter film than it would appear; filled with even more layers than an onion (‘Shrek’ reference). Rogen and Goldberg have done the unthinkable of creating a deep film, even if it’s diving deep into seas of filth. But, most importantly, ‘Sausage Party’ is an outrageously funny piece of bad taste that will have you either vomiting from the grossness or laughing too hard.
4 out of 5 swearing sausages
'Sausage Party' is now screening nationally.
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