Sausage Party was Never Boring and Decent Throughout but the Funniest and Craziest Stuff is in the Ending

Rating: 8/10 (20 August 2016)

As disappointing as the summer has been (some good and some bad, fewer truly great movies than I wanted) Sausage Party was one of the movies that I was holding out hope for. The marketing made it look like something completely different, it had a voice cast full of actors that are funny and likable and the focus on presenting a big animated R rated movie was intriguing. I went into this completely ready to love it and ultimately came out happy and ready to sing it's praises.
*Minor Spoilers Ahead* Sausage Party begins at the local Shopwells grocery store. The products/food in the grocery store awake ready to join the "Gods" (human beings who shop at the store) and enter "The Great Beyond" (heaven for the food, outside the store). They sing a song to honour the gods and to thank them for the opportunity to take them there. We focus in on a particular package of sausages and a particular bag of buns. Frank (Seth Rogen) is longing for the day where he will be able to slip into his girlfriend bun Brenda (Kristen Wiig). He's in a package with other sausages Carl (Jonah Hill) and Barry (Michael Cera) and they cannot wait to get to the great beyond. In a surprise move, the two packages are picked together and they celebrate by touching fingertips.
In a surprise move, a jar of honey mustard that had been returned earlier that day has been ranting about how the gods are monsters and that he will not go back under any circumstance. He gets thrown in the cart with them and tries to commit suicide by jumping out. Frank and Brenda try to save him but it triggers an accident that leaves a bunch of food falling out of the cart. This includes a douche (Nick Kroll) who blames Frank and Brenda for his nozzle being bent. Their friends have been taken and they urgently need to get back into some packaging. Frank and Brenda who have now been joined by a Lavash (David Krumholtz) and a bagel Sammy (Edward Norton) need to get back to their respective aisles so they can join their friends in The Great Beyond.
Most of the reviews for Sausage Party have claimed that it's revolutionary and that it will change animation. I wouldn't go that far but I would give the movie credit for having an interesting message to try and get across. Sausage Party isn't subtle about it but the point of Sausage Party is that it's okay to question widely held beliefs like religion. The food in the supermarket blindly believe that their journey out will lead to wonderful things without having any proof and even when Frank tries to convince them of their impending doom, they don't believe him. There's nothing wrong with believing in a higher power and it's not right that atheists believe that they should just call believers idiots. The movie does the right thing and takes the high road in saying that you need to respect different beliefs and I appreciated that it had the decency to not just jam the atheist agenda down the public's throats. There's also some commentary on the affairs in the Middle East which was a nice added touch that not every movie would have had the time to include.
There's a pretty varied voice cast, a lot of them are Rogen's friends that you see in most of his films and there are some newcomers that do good work. Seth Rogen is pretty typical Seth Rogen (I like Seth but he's basically playing himself) and people like Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, James Franco, Paul Rudd and Danny McBride are good as they are in most of their collaborations. I thought Kristen Wiig did a really good job, I laughed at her stuff the most actually. Nick Kroll's character was really annoying but they were going for your typical jerk "bro" and he nailed it. I actually didn't recognize Bill Hader at all and even though some although people called it racist, I could see why Salma Hayek was cast and she did a decent job. On another note, the animation was also decent, I didn't think it was anything special but it was more than passable.
Most of the way through this movie I was laughing and I was enjoying myself but I was a little disappointed. It hadn't lived up to the hype (at least to me) and I was starting to come to the conclusion that it was more of a solid film than a great one. I have to say though, by the time the climax happens, they really kicked it into high gear. There hadn't been a lot of action but when you hit that last 20 minutes, there's plenty of it and it was weird enough to give it the kick in the @$$ I thought Sausage Party needed. After that, there's a 5 minute scene that was among the most bizarre and funniest things I have seen in a long time. I won't spoil it but if you're like me and were waiting for that jaw-dropping moment, don't worry it's coming.
If there's anything that I think Sausage Party deserves credit for, it's trying something different and going the whole nine yards with it instead of just dipping their toes in. They wear their subtext on their sleeves, they aren't afraid to be crass and they aren't satisfied with a generic payoff. I didn't think the plot, the voice work or the animation were revolutionary or even special but luckily the ending was. Much like The Purge: Election Year, this movie isn't going to be for everyone and also like that movie, it doesn't seem to care. I would have probably been giving Sausage Party a 7.5 halfway through but because the finale is so insane, I feel like I have to respect that and give it an 8/10 instead.