Walking into Sausage Party, there was a brief moment when I thought perhaps I was in for something different from Seth Rogan this time. After all, he was playing a hot dog frankfurt in an animated movie. Surely we’d be spared the dick jokes and weed smoking. Surely?
The title alone should have been a big enough clue that I wasn’t going to escape the former, and from the very first word spoken (“F***”) it was clear that this R rated animation was not made for kids. In fact, these cute little supermarket foods swore more often than Samuel L. Jackson in a Tarantino movie.
In the film, Rogan voices Frank, a hot dog frankfurt looking forward to the day he gets picked off the supermarket shelf by the “Gods” and taken home to the “great beyond”, a sort of heaven that they hear about every day in their morning sing-song.
Luckily, it’s “Red, what and blue day” (the fourth of July), and not only is Frank finally amongst the chosen ones, but his hot-dog-bun girlfriend Brenda (Kristen Wiig) has been selected as well, which means Frank finally gets to put his sausage in her bun (yes, the jokes can be that subtle).
Their dreams are dashed when the trolley is involved in a small accident, a clever scene reminiscent of ground zero on 9/11, caused by Honey Mustard who has been returned from the great beyond with claims that it’s not the joyful experience that the myths have led them to believe.
Frank and Brenda get separated from the rest of their packs, leading them on an adventure through the various sections of the supermarket as they try to make it back to their shelf in the hopes of entering another packet and being picked the next morning.
Ethnic jokes and stereotyping occur as they interact with various foods from around the world, with Jewish (Edward Norton doing a very good Woody Allen impression as Sammy the bagel), Middle Eastern, and Mexican cultures (Salma Hayek can still sexy even when voicing a lesbian taco) all represented.
It’s when they reach the liquor section that we finally get the other Seth Rogan staple, as Chief Firewater shares his weed with Frank to help prepare him for the truth about the Great Beyond. Frank feels that it’s his duty to warn the other food that the myth isn’t real, that the Gods are really monsters, but this only leads to anger and depression, followed by a revolt and a massive food orgy (before this I wouldn’t have believed that an animated movie about food could make me blush).
Yes, any parents accidentally taking their kids along to this movie will find that it’s definitely not a Pixar film and will be racing out of the cinema within no time. Fans of Rogan, however, will definitely enjoy this movie as it is written by and starring a lot of his frequent collaborators, including James Franco and Michael Cera amongst the voice cast, all of whom do a great job of bringing the food to life and making it more than just a one joke film.
Both familiar as a Rogan feature full of smutty jokes, sex and smoking pot, while at the same time not being your typical animated film, there are enough decent jokes to make this an enjoyable night out.
The Crunch Reviewer
Austin Barron