Raunchy Morons, And Nothing Else

Rating: 3/10 (4 February 2020)

Sausage Party is based on a singular premise. "It's a cartoon but they swear and do sexy things! Isn't that crazy?!" You needn't delve any deeper, because the writers evidently didn't either. And they also evidently have never seen any cartoon from the 90s or 2000s, or they would know that this style of comedy has been done to death by so many others that we, the audience, are no longer shocked or amused by the simple utterance of a swear word. If they were intending to pander explicitly to 13 year olds who have just learned the full array of swear words available to them, or to youths too high to formulate coherent thoughts (and let's be honest, these guys are no stranger to these audiences), then they've done their job, but at the cost of dumbing it down to the level of pure cringe inducing, over-the-top idiocy.
This is quite disappointing coming from these writers. Rogen, Goldberg and Hill have certainly been around the block when it comes to stoner comedy. Superbad (2007), Pineapple Express (2008) and This Is The End (2013) were all goofy and ridiculous, but they were able to pull it back just enough to leave room for something else besides swearing and sexual innuendo. And that's important. You can make a movie where swearing and dick jokes are the only source of humor (and they did), but it's going to suck. I won't mince words here. This humor is puerile, idiotic and takes no skill or effort.
This movie feels the need to constantly bash you over the head with it's comedy and it's metaphors. "Do you get it? The sausages are penises! Do you get it?!" This is what it felt like watching the movie. It wasn't an enjoyable experience. It was a chore to wade through the overt and pointless exposition. Does every character need to be extremely horny, drunk or a babbling moron? The song at the very beginning could have been gold, but they chose to go the easiest route of literalness, with not even a hint of subtlety. It seemed like they weren't sure that people would get the religious metaphors, so they made sure to slap you in the face with it. There is no trust in the audience to get anything not spelled out in giant glowing letters. It's not only childish, it's insulting. I mean, the evil character, the one that is a huge jerk the whole movie, is literally a douche. Come on.
Where do you go from here? It's seems like the writers and directors have exhausted the very limits of low-brow. You cannot get lower than this. The brow has sunk below the feet, under the earth, burned in the core of the earth. The same place where every copy of this movie should be, lest anyone suffer as I and many other have. The creators need to rewatch some Cartoon Network, brush up on how to do raunchy animated comedy, and then try again. Or better yet, stick to live action.