Reel Entropy

In spite of Sony being Sony and this movie being full of brand-able foodstuff, there isn’t any product placement in this. It’s nice to not see the movie’s artistic chops undermined by commercialism, and that’s one more badge of honor the movie can point to to say that even though it’s about anti-semetic lavashes and hot dogs and buns having sex, it’s still primarily art. Photos courtesy Paramount Pictures.

Seth Rogen, like weed itself, has always been an acquired taste. In Sausage Party, the flavor is stronger than it’s ever been.

The film zeroes in on Frank (Rogen, who also writes and produces), an anthropomorphic hot dog in an eight-pack for sale at Shopwell’s. Every morning, all the store’s items wake up and sing to their gods, the shoppers, whom they hope will carry them to eternal life in the Great Beyond before they expire and are thrown away. Early in the film, a jar of honey mustard (Danny McBride) is returned by a customer who wanted actual mustard, screaming of the horrors he witnessed after being taken home. After inadvertently being removed from his package, Frank goes to the non-perishable items for wisdom, and then on a quest beyond the frozen foods section to seek proof of Honey Mustard’s claims. Fellow sausages Carl (Jonah Hill, who also contributed to the story) and Barry (Michael Cera) end up in the Great Beyond, and discover the truth — that the gods are evil and consume them for power.

It’s not much of a financial risk, but they shoved all their artistic chips in the pot with this. Sausage Party is total, no-holds-barred comedy. Nothing is off-limits, nothing is sacred and absolutely every idea that would work was crammed in. In a comedy landscape where everything tries to be raunchy but is afraid of the NC-17 rating, Sausage Party uses animation to duck the rating without making any real sacrifices to its pulpy credentials.

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