Movie Review: Sausage Party

Seth Rogen and his (mostly male) friends voice this animated comedy about super-horny snags. It’s a real dude shindig. Huh. Feels like there’s a better way to say that…

Sausage Party takes the skeleton of Pixar’s iconic Toy Story (what if our toys could talk? Cute!) and dresses it with the meat of a Werner Herzog documentary (life is meaningless; bummer!).

It takes place in a supermarket, where the produce stirs to life every morning by singing a joyous hymn about “The Great Beyond”, and dreaming of that transcendent moment when “the gods” will pick them from the shelf, pop them in their trolley and take them out of those elusive sliding doors to some heavenly plane.

For the sausages Frank (Rogen), Carl (Jonah Hill) and Barry (Michael Cera), paradise would mean finally being united with their ladylike companions: the hotdog buns, the sauciest of which, Brenda, is voiced by Kristen Wiig. (And they say there are no good rolls for women.)

However, when Frank and Brenda are separated from their pals and left behind in the store, they learn they’ve been spared from a viciously violent fate, in which “the gods” brutally slaughter food by boiling them, slicing them and, most heinously of all, chewing them up and swallowing them. I would tell you what happens next to the food in the bowels of the gods, but I don’t know if your constitution could handle it.

Instead, the newly liberated Frank and Brenda roam the aisles with ideological frenemies Sammy Bagel Jr. (Edward Norton by way of Woody Allen) and Lavash the, er, lavash bread (David Krumholtz). Later they’re joined by Teresa del Taco (Salma Hayek), whose flirtations leave Brenda questioning her devout faith. Frank, on the other hand, loses interest in carnal gratification after being enlightened on the cosmic joke of his existence by some immortal non-perishables. Meanwhile, they’re all pursued by a vengeful feminine hygiene product (Nick Kroll). Do I really have to say his name?

All of this happens in a brightly cartoonish environment that would not look out of place on a toddler’s iPad, if it wasn’t for all the explicit sexual references, frequent drug-taking and despairing, pervasive nihilism.

Directors Conrad Vernon (taking a side-step from his last feature, Madagascar 3) and Greg Tiernan (even more worryingly, of Thomas and Friends fame) have succeeded in making this an effective visual and tonal spoof, perfectly emulating Pixar and DreamWorks’ past projects. The script - by Rogen, his regular creative partner Evan Goldberg, Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir - is not quite as watertight as the kind you’d get from Pixar, though its shaggy self-awareness – and pointed satire - is endearing and refreshing in its own, horrendously filthy way.

That said, Sausage Party is the same joke played over and over again, and the intentionally-offensive stereotyping of foreign cuisine and anatomically-accurate representation of foodstuff eventually stops generating the giddy laughs of the first 30 minutes, enthusiastic voice-work aside.

It’s a welcome relief that the adventures of Michael Cera’s misshapen frankfurter Barry should dominate the picture’s third act. When he breaks out on his own and into the streets, Sausage Party allows us to imagine a twisted, parallel universe version of Finding Nemo, where Nemo instead partners up with a dude who mainlines bath salts.

So, clearly, this isn’t for everyone, and certainly no one under the age of… well, I’m not really sure there’s any age where you’re ready to see Sausage Party’s epic, virtuoso climax: a graphic bacchanal conducted entirely by the contents of your fridge.

Let’s call it an acquired taste.

3.5/5

In cinemas August 11. Rated MA15+ for strong crude sexual humour, coarse language and drug use.