Review- Sausage Party

Sausage Party is exactly the kind of film that the poster makes it look like. It's an animated Pixar-esque film only no kid should ever see it. The story is interesting and is based off a simple idea. Everything you can buy in a supermarket is actually sentient, although the humans can't see them do that. The characters all want to be picked up by the humans and taken to the promised land (outside the supermarket). However, there's trouble as some characters start to question the morals of the humans and question whether what they've been told is actually true. Being a comedy, the story is basically there to take us from comedy set piece to comedy set piece and provide some good setups for jokes but it works as a slight parody of the Pixar style of storytelling and a way of moving the film along.

The voice cast for the film is seriously impressive as well. Not only is the list impressive but the performances are great. Seth Rogen leads as the main sausage and is typical him, only animated. There's nothing amazing about the performance but he's still good. Kristen Wiig is as fantastic as ever as Rogen's girlfriend, a sexy hot dog bun. It's an obvious set up but it works. My surprise favourite was a Jewish bagel called Sammy. I spent most of the film convinced that the guy voicing him was Woody Allen and was confused at how they could have even got him but I was shocked to find out it's Edward Norton. As in, star of Fight Club, highly respect actor, Edward Norton. He was fantastic though. The rest of the cast is great as well, I'll just run it down: Michael Cera as a nerdy deformed sausage, Salma Hayek as a sexually repressed taco, Bill Hader as assorted bottles of spirits, Nick Kroll as an agressive douche, Danny McBride as Honey Mustard, Craig Robinson as some chocolate grits and Paul Rudd as the nerdy store clerk.

Usually with an animated film, I'd talk about the quality of animation in a film but it's not that spectacular. It's fine but it doesn't need to be focused on. Instead, being a Seth Rogen comedy, I want to focus on the comedy of this movie. First off, it really is a Seth Rogen movie, his humour is everywhere. If you don't like Seth Rogen films, you won't like this film but that said, this is strangely his most approachable film. Sure, there's stoner humour but there's also meta humour, references and societal criticism. For example, the film deals with sexuality, racism, monogamy and most integrally, religious criticism. There's also a lot of shock humour. Like, a lot. If you haven't heard of the way the film ends, I won't ruin it but it takes a lot of build up and uses it for comedy gold. I still can't really believe what I saw on the big screen, in an actual film, sitting with actual people and I think that makes the film worth watching if nothing else. I don't know how it would hold up a second time round but I am fascinated.

Sausage Party isn't for everyone and it isn't perfect but I'm glad it exists. The humour doesn't always land and it can feel a bit much at times but there is something to respect about the insanity of this film. I have never seen anything like this and as an industry, we need to reward originality. The movie is flawed and it isn't the greatest comedy ever made but I think it's Seth Rogen's best work and deserves an