SNAPSHOT
Sausage Party, the first R-rated CG animated movie, is about one sausage leading a group of supermarket products on a quest to discover the truth about their existence and what really happens when they become chosen to leave the grocery store. The film features the vocal talents of a who’s who of today’s comedy stars – Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Paul Rudd, Nick Kroll, David Krumholtz, Edward Norton, and Salma Hayek. (synopsis via Hollywood News)
Hope springs eternal.
Even for sentient hot dogs, bread buns and carrots in a supermarket, all of whom breathlessly look forward to being “chosen” and living out their true purpose.
But what happens if this rather dreamy, idyllic theology if post-checkout self-fulfillment turns out to be a mouth-chomping nightmare?
What happens then? Ah, what happens is Sausage Party, an R-rated animated comedy from Seth Rogen’s that’s been eight years in the making, which remains a blessedly trippy, expletive-filled work in progress and which had a screening of some footage at this year’s SXSW to rapturous applause.
Trippy? Expletive? Sentient hotdogs? Yup, people, this is not your grandma’s animated movie but an adult-flavoured offering more in keeping with the likes of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, with a whole lot of humanity, hilarity and a dawning realisation that getting chosen, for food at least, equates to dying in the most horrendous of ways.
Harbouring the potential to utterly transform your supermarket-shopping experience, and to turn a comforting experience like dinner into an existential guilt-ridden, hilariously-deranged horror show, Sausage Party is brilliant, wearing its in-your-face, heartfelt humanity very much on its plastic-packaging sleeve.
How on earth we’re supposed to wait for its release five months hence is beyond me with such a tasty cinematic morsel dangling so tantalisingly close we can taste it … oops sorry guys, looks like it’ll take more take more than one viewing of the trailer to really appreciate how my food feels.
That’s OK – there’s plenty of time for repeated viewings.
Sausage Party opens 12 August 2016 in USA and UK.