Sausage Party

The anti-LEGO Movie. The protagonists have been brainwashed by a (corporate) ideology according to which the point of existence is to wait for one of the “Gods” to choose you and take you to the Promised Land, where a Jewish bagel and a Muslim lavash will find peace and quiet, otherwise leading to an endless dispute over who is entitled to occupy the “western shelves” of the supermarket. They are unaware that instead of 77 bottles of virgin olive oil and other pleasures, what awaits them is a painful death in a pot of boiling water or in a meat grinder. Every workday begins with a collective sing-along of an idiotic feel-good song in the mould of “Everything is Awesome”, which the characters want to continue singing even after coming to the realisation that maybe everything isn’t so wonderful. It’s just more comfortable for them to keep believing in the illusion that they have created for themselves, which offers them solace instead of existential angst. Unfortunate historical experience discourages dogmatically clinging to optimism, so let’s pretend that the past doesn’t exist and continue to live a lie. It seems that hedonism is the only satisfactory alternative to faith in salvation, which requires, among other things, the renunciation of physical pleasures. We are all going to die eventually anyway (with the exception of non-perishable foods), so why not at least lick a bun or smoke a beet before we do and make our joyless existence a little more pleasant. Of course, the anti-consumerist message of a film produced by a giant media corporation cannot be taken too seriously, and Sausage Party deserves credit for not wanting anything of the sort from the viewer. On the other hand, it is perhaps a pity that behind the veil of ultra-simple jokes, it’s a bit hard to see how clever and subversive a film Rogen’s crew came up with this time. After all, the biggest monster is not the talking can of deodorant, but the character of a random human consumer, living in the belief that there will always be something to eat. If nothing else, the mere fact that you feel compelled to root for a talking sausage, desiccated chewing gum and a busty bun in their struggle against people like you (i.e. people who are guilty of consumerism) can be considered a win for the filmmakers. 85% (2016-08-26)

This is just a total nightmare. A bunch of completely unintelligent jokes with an even bigger pile of bad words crammed into a sleazy and disgusting movie. Not to mention the pathetic scene at the end. Lessons learned for next time? When Seth Rogen writes the screenplay for something, it can never be all that good. (2016-09-14)

Death and mutilation. Food at the mercy of the Gods in the fight against the faith that for so many years determined their mission… Who would have said that movies by Seth Rogen and Simon Pegg would grace the summer blockbuster season (no really, this summer was all about Star Trek and Sausage Party), but thank God for that. Probably just these two can deliver originality and quality. They managed to create another classic. An unscrupulous cartoon full of cussing and sexual innuendo, about the importance of faith and community, friendship and modern relationships. An unbelievable storm of ideas (not always exploited to the full) almost with potential for a series, there are too many shelves. The perfect characters personifying various opinions on faith and a great explanation of the concept of religion become slightly lost in the attempt to please today’s audience, but there is a message. Excellent jokes, impressive subtitling. I look forward to seconds. (2016-08-26)

I had a dream about fat stars, who, stoned on a couch, who came up with the idea of film in which they want to insert a talking wiener into a chubby bun. Then I woke up, I was at the cinema watching Sausage Party, and it looked more like a first-rate nightmare. Points for penetrating the sterile moralistic vacuum of animators, zero for any real subversiveness and meatiness. A soy substitute for things by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. A Lavash bagel having sex is not enough for me to squirt light mayonnaise, you sausages. (2016-08-31)

Whatever you may think of Seth Rogen, I appreciate the fact that he can surround himself with like-minded people and from time to time release something into the world that studios don't usually have the balls to do. Like a film about the assassination of Kim Jong Un or Sausage Party. On the face of it, it's exactly what you'd expect, a cheap but still decent-looking animated film full of dirty and vulgar jokes, some of which might not even pass muster with the writers of South Park – the final five minutes are a great test of the audience's taste. At the same time, it's all surprisingly smart, working with themes that are perhaps too ambitious for such a film at first glance, and together it works perfectly. Sausage Party is ninety minutes long, and they don’t waste time, so the pacing is lethal, the cadence of the jokes more than satisfying, and you'll find enough ideas that you'll never think of this animated madness as mere self-indulgent vulgarity. Yeah, it's vulgar, but it's also intelligent, surprising and, above all, terribly funny. (2017-05-15)