Trust a movie about sentient grocery store food to be the surprise hit of the season, with Seth Rogen making the first ever ‘adult’ animated movie, with all the bells and whistles of a great Pixar film, but infused with a whole lot of swearing, drugs, sex and food abuse. The concept is ludacris; laughable (you’d hope), with a story about a sausage called Frank who wants to discover the truth about what happens once he and his other comestible pals are bought and taken home.
The trailer shows probably the only minute-and-a-half of the film without anything vulgar or offensive, the rest is a swirl of social commentaries, allegories and puns that often are so quick that if you didn’t process it, too late. Fear not though, another joke is only a few seconds away. Sure it is Seth Rogen and his usual collaborators; Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Michael Cera etc. but perhaps one of the funniest, and surprisingly so, is Edward Norton’s bagel character. All are witty and likeable in their own ways however, and it all contributes to the weird childish vibe of the movie that truthfully is anything but.
So inside Shopwell’s grocery store are aisles and aisles of different kinds of supermarket items – all alive, all blissfully unaware of what happens outside those doors and worshipping humans and wanting to transition to the beyond. It’s not until a traumatized jar of honey mustard returns to the store with the revelation that we eat them does the plot unravel, leaving a sausage and his bun lover (Kristen Wiig) to seek out answers, and save their friends.
There of course is a deeper plot, with the non-perishables cabal to fool the store plus the inclusion of bath salts and some very funny, but also very unexpected, violent and sexual scenes. It’s everything you’re used to seeing Rogen do, but now it’s a cartoon, and for some reason it all works really well.
It is obvious that this film has been worked on for almost ten years, tightening the plot points and the jokes, and it is also obvious why they couldn’t fund it for so long; the risk is great and on paper the pitch is nonsense, but overall it delivers entertainment and then some – a problem a lot of movies are having right now. It is very refreshing to see a new original concept that now will undoubtedly start a trend, even if it’s Sausage Party’s sequel – which they boldly try to setup at the end and to be honest, I’d watch it.
Sausage Party 7/10
