Sausage Party – Film Review

As a child, getting up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons was the highlight of my day. Cartoons or animated movies were one of the few outlets of entertainment that seemed to understand a child’s mind. They were silly, outlandish, and outright eccentric, reflections of who we were as children. As adults, we still enjoy them and the few jokes thrown in there that only we would understand.

The animated feature Sausage Party takes the PG out and gives adults a cartoon film just for them. The movie is raunchy, hilarious and filled with sexual innuendos (the sausages want to hook up with buns), stereotype (the Sauerkraut bottles are Nazis), and food related joke (the Horseradish jars literally turn into horses) in the book. A film of this magnitude and content could only be co-written by one of the few duo’s in Hollywood that could pull this off, Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, the stoner minds behind Superbad and Pineapple Express.

The film is about the lives of the food in a supermarket called Shopwell, they each believe that when they are chosen by a shopper they will be taken to the “great beyond,” or the outside world, where all their wildest dreams will come true. Every day for them starts off with a musical number led off by Corn, a happy song they play for the Gods. Firewater (Bill Hader), an Indian can of lighter fluid, has every food in the store believing that the great beyond is a wonderful and magical place.

Frank (Seth Rogen) the sausage and the rest of his wiener pals, specifically loud mouthed Carl (Jonah Hill) and Barry (Michael Cera), the awkwardly shaped sausage in the package, wait for the fateful day that they will be chosen. They hope to be picked next to their counterparts, the bun gals, who will one day be mated with a sausage. A jar of Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) is returned and Honey Mustard proclaims to everyone that the outside world is filled with monsters who will eat them.

Frank and Brenda’s packages are finally chosen and they are super excited to be in the supermarket cart together. A bottle of Douche (Nick Kroll) is also chosen, who is literally the representation of a “douche.” He talks with a Jersey Shore accent and is super obnoxious. Then the unthinkable happens, a huge accident causes many of the items to fall on the floor. Frank and Brenda are thrown from the cart along with Douche who is now bent, broken and angry that he is no longer whole. Douche is hell bent on revenge and wants to kill Frank. 

Along the way, Frank and Brenda run into Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton) and Lavash (David Krumholtz) who are also lost and looking for their way back to their aisle. Together the four of them join forces and encounter a random array of characters, there is Teresa the Taco (Salma Hayek), Grits (Craig Robinson), Gum (Scott Underwood) who is in a wheelchair and talks like Stephen Hawking, Tequila (Bill Hader) who cannot be trusted, and even a crazy guy on bath salts (James Franco).

The film is hilarious from beginning to end and I really have never seen anything like this before. I mean there are some funny and out there cartoons on Adult Swim from the Cartoon Network, and then there is Family Guy, which throws out some pretty raunchy jokes itself, but this movie takes everything and amps it up about a thousand notches.

At some points, I even found myself cringing a bit, but what can you expect from a movie with talking sausages. I think the creators knew they had to go there with this format, otherwise I think they would have been criticized for not pushing the envelope enough. The story faults a bit here and there where it starts off strong in the first half and towards the second loses some of its focus, but overall I think the film worked.

I thought Rogen killed it, his voice is perfect for this type of movie and Wiig, despite being just a voice was phenomenal and her humor resonated even as a cartoon character. I can guarantee she will be doing more animated voices soon. Cera was also funny and his voice was perfect for the abnormal hot dog. My favorite character had to be Gum, he was the smart one of the bunch who can never die because gum just doesn’t ever go away. Just seeing a piece of gum in a wheelchair with glasses was just too funny.

This is a perfect movie to see with friends or just for a night of laughter. I bet this movie will be a hit when it is released on DVD because I am sure it only gets funnier after watching it a few times. But I have to warn you after watching this movie, you will never feel the same way about picking out your produce and condiments at the supermarket again.

Starring:  Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Salma Hayek, James Franco

Directed by: Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon

Written by: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir

MPAA rating: R

Running time: 89 min

Rating: 4/5