Food Wars

*Food Wars* is a 2016 computer animated comedy film produced by Actors 3D Entertainment & Ankora Films and distributed by Columbia Pictures under Sony Pictures Releasing. *Food Wars* was directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan. written by Evan Goldberg, and produced by Vernon. The film was released to theaters August 12, 2016 and received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and audiences alike although it was a box office hit. It's also considered to be the worst Actors 3D film and one of the worst animated films of all time.

## Why It Sucks

1. Unlike Actors 3D's other films, this was intended to become the studio's first feature-length adult animated film. However, it was Ankora's idea but later when the film was almost completed, Actors 3D refused to make it an adult-oriented film but rather a kid-friendly version of Sony's *Sausage Party* (which ironically came out the same day as this film) despite several scenes where the foods get murdered by the human characters in many brutal ways. This is basically what happens when family-friendly animation studios tend to do adult animated features for younger audiences with poor execution.
	* Besides that, Ankora wanted to make this film in the first place just because most of their previous films hadn't quite reached the success level of Actors 3D's movies, so they planned to hire Actors 3D as part of their attempt to track down said aforementioned studio's consistent quality, which is rather a *strange* attempt at revenge.
2. The film's story is rather awkward, somewhat generic, and very traumatizing in many ways; and it's arguably as weird as it sounds: a hardworking determined banana named Benny gets recruited by a sausage named Frank and his Food Gang in order to solve the case of foods being murdered by Chef Douche, the world's greatest chef, by getting revenge on humans while also finding purpose other than being eaten. *Foods are meant to be eaten, isn't that their purpose in life?*
3. In relation to the film's story, the whole film is actually a waste of a great concept: although the idea of sentiment foods has been already done several times, this film was originally going to involve the food characters on a mystery-themed adventure across the streets of London. However, despite the film having Benny & the Food Gang solve the case of already dead foods, the film is rather botched with horrible execution due to them also wanting to kill humans and trying to survive their fate.
4. Incredibly unlikable characters that serve no purpose other than forcing Benny to join them for getting their desired revenge on humans:
	* Frank Furter is by far the most unlikable character in this film, as he was the one who sought revenge on humans at first *for no apparent reason whatsoever* other than supposedly being murdered. What's even worse about him would be his ruthless personality and the fact that he's actually a complete psychopath! *He even had the need to say that twice!*
	* Olive Onion is sometimes manipulative towards Benny despite her being his stale-as-bread love interest. She's even more of the stereotypical "highly religious person" when she constantly refuses to help Benny research about The Great Beyond, and can sometimes get way too melodramatic *all because for being an onion, get it?*
	* Dave Chessestick is a cowardly anthromorphic cheese breadstick who gets worried about everything and repeatedly yells for no reason.
	* Honey Mustard and Guac are the film's generic Sarge-like foods who always punish the other foods when they refuse to attend their training camp. They even go as far as portraying Adolf Hitler in several scenes.
	* King Cake is a selfish and ignorant English cake who only worries about his birthday and overall looks.
	* Pita and Falafel are an sexist Arab couple of bread & crackers whom make unnecessary sexist jokes about each other, and they literally do nothing other than complaining about each other's sex.
	* Watermelon Guy is nothing more but a self-centered and arrogant watermelon who only makes unfunny jokes about his weight.
	* Mr. Taco Burrito and Mrs. Teresa Taco are actually stereotypical Catholic tacos who declare themselves to be part of the LGBTQ community. *Why are they even gay and lesbian? This is a kids' film!*
	* The Tomatoes are the film's pointless comic reliefs whom always get killed and they don't even seem to care about it.
	* The other characters are just racial stereotypes whom, like Olive Onion, are strict about their religious beliefs; they don't really do anything to help Benny at all.
5. Incorrectly depicted characters: for instance, inanimate non-foodstuff objects such as Douche's two finest blades, DeSlavo and Blady, are anthromorphic whereas their other knife counterparts aren't.
6. The character designs for the humans look rather weird, and while Benny has the best overall character design, the designs for Frank and his Food Gang seem very simple and uncreative. The character designs for the sausages and buns seem very inappropriate, as the sausages are shaped like penises and the buns being shaped like rear ends.
7. The film is loaded with too much shameless product placement to the point where it gets as bad or perhaps even worse than *The Fuzzi Movie.* You can easily see an McDonald's restaurant with other fast food eateries such as Burger King, Domino's Pizza, and KFC at the scene where Benny & the Food Gang travel in someone's van; several advertisements for gum makers like Orbit, Extra, and Mentos as well as soda companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola (there's even actual sodas from said soda companies in several scenes of the film); candy such as Hershey's and M&M's; cereal boxes from Kellogg's and General Mills such as Frosted Flakes, Special K, Apple Jacks, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch; grocery retailers such as Walmart, Kroger, Trader Joe's, Aldi, and Target; gas stores such as Shell and 7-Eleven, and lots of other food-related products and companies. There's even billboards for said corporations and some unnecessary product placement that isn't food, such as YouTube, Netflix, Monopoly, LG, Apple, Amazon, and General Electric.
8. The film is also loaded with several unnecessary pop culture references to *The Wizard Of Oz, West Side Story, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, A Clockwork Orange, Gone With The Wind, Casablanca,* and other adult-oriented fare that kids won't obviously get. *Again, this is NOT an adult animated film!*
9. Several mediocre attempts at comedy, such as the scene where Frank utters in a deadpan tone, "Man, I wish I weren't dead" only later for him to get his back chopped by one of Chef Douche's knives, the infamous cafeteria food fight scene in which Benny gets tossed to the window by some kid, the refrigerator scene where Dave begins to yell after thinking it's "the microwave of death", and most notoriously the scene where Bob The Tomato dies by knife at Chef Douche's sink.
10. The title of the movie, *Food Wars,* is an somewhat bad pun on *Star Wars.*
	* The film even makes rather poor attempts at parodying *Star Wars,* and its references to said film series don't help it either at all.
11. Excruciating and stupid dialogue, such as Frank's "EXTERMINATE THE JUICE, YOU IDIOT!" and most especially Chef Douche's *"Somebody's gonna be roasted chicken tonight!"* the latter being very laughable.
	* Along with the excruciating dialogue, the film is *way too* overloaded with lame and nonsensical food-related puns, such as: "lettuce know if you have any questions", "I've got cream-whipped!", "I'm gonna beet the cheese out of you guys", and most infamously, "you son of a banana!"
12. Chef Douche's a very weak antagonist for the film. He is basically treated as the film's "Butt-Monkey" as he constantly becomes Frank's punching bag, thus making Frank the actual main villain of this film. His motives for murdering food make absolutely no sense at all since that's what cooks do for their living, and by that reason he's not really a world-famous chef at all but yet another psychopath for this film. Besides, why is he even called **Chef Douche?** Douches are defined as feminine jets that are used to direct against or into a body part or cavity, and also means *body* in French. It's actually really cringeworthy and inappropriate when you overthink about it.
13. This film is an obvious rip-off of CGI Entertainment's 2007 film *Foods* but much worse, although *Foods* turned out to be decent.
14. Despite having great voice acting, it completely wasted the voice talents of Jerry Seinfeld, Seth Rogen, Kristen Wilg, Edward Norton, Drew Carey, James Franco, Steve Buscemi, Salma Hayek, and even Bill Hader (who later refused to voice the titular character in *Marco 4* all because of how this film negatively affected his acting career).
15. **Too much violent if dark sequences for a kids' film,** considering why this film somehow received a PG rating: in several scenes of the film, we see the Food Gang & Chef Douche battling each other with Douche's knives; a scene where Chef Douche tortures King Cake by overheating him in his oven; one scene where the Food Gang blow up Fred by forcing him to drink Coke with Mentos at the Shopley grocery store, another scene where some living foods get chopped by Douche's chef assistants, and several scenes in which the Tomatoes get killed by many harsh outcomes such as car accidents or getting squashed by humans.
16. In several instances of the film, it comes off as racist:
	* Several characters are racial stereotypes: particularly, Sammy Bagel Jr. has stereotypical Jewish mannerisms, a stereotypical Jewish accent, and a gigantic nose; Pita and Falafel are an stereotypical Arab couple of bread & crackers; and Pablo Jalapeno Manzano is a stereotypical Mexican pepper.
	* There's also a series of very off-color racist jokes related to Donald Trump and Pablo Jalapeno Manzano for him being voiced by an Mexican actor.
17. **Some rather inappropriate moments for a family film:** in the "Food Gang Hip-Hop" scene, the foods start to move in an unsettling and sexually explicit way. There's one scene where Watermelon Guy utters the word "piss" after seeing Guac's avocado troops being crushed by some door, another scene where we see Ramen cooking sushi (which is considered *cannibalism* since the sushi are alive just like the other foods), and some moment where Frank utters the word "f\*ck" just for the sake of cursing. There's even a rape scene in which Frank tortures little children while insulting them, instances where the Food Gang members constantly use the word "hell" throughout the whole entire film in a kids' movie, and some scenes where Benny tries to commit suicide.
18. Unlike *Food Town,* which had plenty of genuine heart thanks to the interactions between its characters, this film lacks emotional moments and was rather very mean-spirited due to the Food Gang members not having any friendships at all. Benny always gets forced by the Food Gang for him to get revenge on humans although he doesn't want to since he considers them as friends. The emotional moments between Benny and Olive feel rather forced and rushed out because of Olive's refusal to accept Benny for being a banana. Also, the Food Gang's constant arguments about their horrible aftermaths don't help at all either.
19. Just like the 2018 animated *Beibis* film*,* this film was probably only made for the sake of cash, as Actors 3D Entertainment likely saw the box office success that was *The Actors Movie* three months ago and decided to help Ankora make a movie about sentiment food beings that would increase the company's own profits even more. Actors 3D even hired many food-related sponsors for the film just for their own money.
20. The Nazi imagery here is blatant, unlike in *The Actors Movie* in which Hitler and the Nazis are just portrayed as the main antagonists of the game it's based on. Here, they make it very obvious with Frank's hate speech and his constant beatings of the Juice Boxes while also sucking the juice out of them.
21. This movie says it's a parody of Disney and Pixar movies, although the film's particularly aimed at families and it also lacks the emotional depth, humor, and likable characters that make their movies so beloved by everyone. It was also supposed to be meant as a satire on religion, but unlike the *Marco* movies, the film doesn't seem like a religious film or parody at all despite having religious food characters. Does this film have any of this? *Not really.*
22. The film clearly knows nothing about food-related terminology:
	* When a food product expires, it's said to provoke the death of a Food Gang member if said food isn't chopped. However, in one scene, Frank and the other sausages somehow don't die by the time they get expired.
	* When Chef Douche cooks up several dumplings for breakfast, he puts paprika on them for no apparent reason whatsoever.
	* Baking is when you cook food on some oven or any hot surface, but Chef Douche traps King Cake into his overheated oven without thinking that he's actually a cake.
23. **False advertising:** The posters and trailers pointed out that Benny would be the main character of this film. However, in the second half of the film, he unceremoniously gets replaced by Frank as the main protagonist. It was also reported that Adam Sandler would voice Benny in the film according to the teaser trailers, but here he gets replaced by Jerry Seinfeld for the sake of TV popularity.
24. Despite the action scenes being fast paced with good timing, the rest of the film has very inconsistent pacing.
25. Several continuity errors in the film, like:
	* Benny's constantly been tossed to the point where he gets squashed when hitting hard surfaces, but somehow he doesn't die anyway, especially in the cafeteria food fight scene.
	* Frank and his fellow hot dogs should be refrigerated in the supermarket as they are meats otherwise they would go off and cause food poison.
	* Honey Mustard's legs completely disappear after being returned to the store, then reappears when he is chosen again.
	* The Shopley clerk fires his revolver eight times without reloading, but several scenes show the cylinder holds exactly six rounds.
	* Frank is bandaged after the battle with the humans and heading into the portal after the orgy. In one shot of the orgy, Frank does not have the bandage wrap on him (and appears to be fine) when pulling a chain of beads out of Olive.
	* Despite Gum's claim, salt is not sugar: both salt and sugar may seem the same, but they actually have different flavors.
26. The film's overall message of staying together despite one's own religion is rather poorly-executed, forced, and very bland; as the Food Gang members fight each other just because of their own religious beliefs. The film's other message about not throwing your food away and caring for the environment are also terrible, since the film actually states that it's good to pollute the environment and waste your food rather than eating it for no reason.
27. This film comes from Actors 3D Entertainment, who's best known for producing good-quality, family-friendly animated films such as the *Marco, Beast Flock, Actors,* and *Josh Samuel* movies. This film just proves to be only for the adult audience and is also considered to be a major downgrade for the studio, but that can be blamed on Ankora, since they were the ones really responsible for this film.
	* This also forced both Ankora and Actors 3D to break their longtime friendship they had back then in 2006 with *Lego,* and for this reason Actors 3D refused to help Ankora make the third and final installment of the aforementioned film.
28. The infamous orgy scene near the film's ending.

## Redeeming Qualities

1. Like other Actors 3D and Ankora films, the animation is beautiful to look at despite some simple and weird character designs.
2. Nice soundtrack.
3. Great voice acting from Jerry Seinfeld, Seth Rogen, Kristen Wilg, Edward Norton, Drew Carey, James Franco, Steve Buscemi, Salma Hayek, and Bill Hader despite their talents being wasted.
4. motives for becoming friends with humans are understandable despite it being weird. A few other characters are likable too, such as Sammy Bagel Jr. and Amy, the young girl who became Benny's best friend.
5. The beginning of the film was heartwarming, also there's some emotional moments that rather worked out well, like when Amy nurtures Benny at her dollhouse and Sammy's sad backstory.
6. Some funny moments here and there, for example:
	* The grocery store scene at the beginning in which we see Benny trying to take away the prices of other foods; when he sees that bananas cost 99 cents at the store, he writes the word "free" on the back side of the price tag only for him to throw it away after realizing that several customers rush to grab some bananas.
	* The scenes where Gum appears to supposedly know everything about science, since he's actually a clever parody of Stephen Hawking.
	* The Columbia Pictures opening scene is hilarious, also a nice nod to Sony Pictures Animation's *Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs* and its 2013 sequel.
	* Benny's constant gag of running towards the garbage can as he thinks of himself as trash.
7. Despite the violent material in this film, the action scenes were at least somewhat enjoyable, especially the film's well done and intense climax battle.
8. While most of the pop culture references found here are only ones adults would get, the film's references to *Avengers: Age Of Ultron* when the Food Gang team up together and the one for *Saving Private Ryan* in which Benny tries to help Guac escape from the refrigerator are very well done if funny. Also, Benny's references to *Seinfeld* are both clever and amusing since he is being voiced by Jerry Seinfeld.
9. Depending on your opinion, the ending was at least decent.
10. This quote from Benny: "*Foods are meant to be eaten, not wasted"* this quote is very true and the film's message could've worked if the Food Gang members took note of Benny's advice in the first place.
11. **"I'm just a couch potato"**