Sausage Party may be lewd, crude and beyond lowbrow, however, it should be congratulated for doing something new and refreshing within the animated genre and giving audiences a different kind of movie to the formulaic mostly average fair that has been presented throughout this summer’s blockbuster period.
We’ve had the usual assortment of remakes (Ghostbusters/Ben Hur) and sequels (Independence Day: Resurgence) none of which have proved revolutionary. The only films to have put a dent in the worldwide box office since June have both been animated: Finding Dory ($945m) and The Secret Life of Pets ($766m).
Suicide Squad ($678m and rising) and X-Men: Apocalypse ($543m) have also done respectful business for comic book movies but none come close to Captain America: Civil War earlier this year. Could it be a knock on effect from the Olympics? Could it be that our On-demand services and television shows are so good now that it really has to be an event movie to merit going to the movies? Or could it just be that this year’s selection of films has been neither good nor original enough for audiences yearning to see something new and exciting?
Not that I’m saying Sausage Party is anything more than an entertaining and at times hilarious comedy but it’s an original idea. Hollywood studios seem to be so terrified of producing anything other than known quantities over the last few years it takes a very long time and a lot of lobbying from a team of people to get anything off the ground. It took at least six years for Seth Rogen before a studio would take a chance on Sausage Party. This isn’t an isolated incident, Ryan Reynolds waited about a decade before he could finally play the Deadpool he wanted to play thereby making one of the films of the year in the process.
Maybe it’s a case of both these movies being deemed too adult for general audiences but surely if a film is good enough it doesn’t matter what certificate it is anymore. Gone are the days when a higher certificate means the death knell of a movie. Obviously the family favourites will still take the majority of money at the box office but films like Deadpool have gone on to become very economically fruitful whilst still garnering huge critical acclaim and retaining its essence.
Sausage Party also stays true to itself and although it’s easy to dismiss it as an excuse for Rogen to get all his buddies along and swear down a microphone for a healthy pay cheque there is a message underneath. A very well crafted metaphor for religion, which is portrayed in a very interesting manner. It may at times be rammed down the audience’s throat at times but the notion in which different foods represent a diverse range of races, religions and characteristics adds an extra layer to a film in which a vaginal douche seeks revenge on a sausage that denied him access to his ‘promised land’.
Yes, it’s occasionally stoner comedy at its most puerile and predictable but Sausage Party took a chance, was very enjoyable and funny and a perfect film if you just want to have a little fun at the cinema. Film is at risk of taking itself so seriously at the moment, and whether is likes it or not, is at war for audience attention with the Golden Age of television, so maybe, we need a few more risk taking movies that aren’t afraid to take a few chances even if they may offend some people.
lukesfilmblog.wordpress.com 