IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY take kids to the Seth Rogen adult animated feature Sausage Party, donāt fret. There are around 100 uses of the word āfuckā in the first three minutes. So youāll know what to do. But should you stick around? Well, if youāre a fan of excessive profanity, casual misogyny, an abundance of racism, and are okay with only a couple of good laughs in a 90-minute movie, then by all means hang around.
The plotāconceived by Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Jonah Hillāis a weak grasp at themes found in South Park, which was obviously Sausage Partyās primary inspiration. Here, anthropomorphized food products canāt wait to be picked up by grocery shoppers, believing that heaven awaits beyond the supermarketās sliding glass doors. Though Frank (a sausage voiced by Rogen) tries to spread the truth, heās pursued by a vengeful douche (Nick Kroll)āwho, yes, is an actual douche.
Unrelenting puns are the go-to jokes in this script, and each food or drink product is assigned a personality based on race: A flatbread is given a stereotypical Middle Eastern makeover, while his enemy, a bagel, is a Jew with a heavy, Woody Allen-esque accent. Interestingly, neither actor voicing these characters is Middle Eastern (David Krumholtz) or Jewish (Edward Norton)āthough Norton is white and has proclaimed himself an āhonorary Jewā... so thereās that! Similarly, Bill Hader (also a white guy) plays āFirewater,ā a Native American bottle of booze (no thank you), who grunts and uses sign language much like the racist āIndian Chiefā in Disneyās 1953 feature Peter Pan.
This just in: Itās not 1953. And whether or not Rogenās overarching messageāthat religion is a bunch of baloneyāis progressive, or if Sausage Party contains a couple of very funny scenes (including a glorious food orgy), thereās no getting around it: This movie is fucking bullshit.
Excuse the French.