As a motion picture, Sausage Party feels like the result of a bunch of millionaire comedians with a movie studio who go to the grocery store while high. At 88 minutes in running time, there is not much substance to the film. In fact the entire production seems like it was built around two jokes: a Book of Mormon-style musical number that opens the story, and an ending scene that is too good to spoil. In between there’s a standard mix of hit and miss jokes. How much you like the middle of the film will be entirely dependent on how much you can tolerate food puns and raunchy standard Seth Rogen humor.
The story follows Frank (Rogen), a sausage living in grocery store that is desperately excited to get bought by their Gods so that he may finally leave his package and have sex with his girlfriend Brenda (Kristen Wiig). But one day a returned bottle of honey mustard (Danny McBride) tells them of the true horrors that are committed after food are bought. They are brutally shredded, boiled, baked, and eaten. His death ruins Frank’s chances of getting bought, but inspires a quest to find the truth, and to save all of his grocery store friends that were bought. All while getting hunted by an angry literal douche (Nick Kroll) who wants revenge for ruining his chances at being purchased.
As a college-aged male, it’s safe to say I am going to be a fan of most everything Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and friends put out. The amount of sex jokes that can fit into a movie about food products is astounding. Despite this, for the most of the run time I can understand how it would not appeal to some. Often the film gets bogged down by its puns, such as the battle over territory between a Middle Eastern lavash (David Krumholtz) and an Israeli bagel (Edward Norton). For a while it almost seems like the movie is trying to make a point about questioning religion. Too much of the short running time still feels like things were thrown in to extend the scope of it, because a writer thought of some idea that would lengthen the exercise. Nick Kroll as a Douche is hilarious every time he appears, but Salma Hayek’s Taco seems fairly unnecessary. She along with a few other characters seem like one-note race jokes.
Nevertheless, the final scenes of the film really pull it out of mediocrity. As the food realize what they are, the movie stretches its legs and takes a turn for the absurd including Steven Hawking gum and gruesome murder. This is what the film was leading up to and makes up for all the race jokes and puns. It’s barrel of fun, even if you don’t necessarily want to see a hot god and bun have sex.
