Futurama: Bender's Game (2008)

3 STARS


Directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill
Produced by Claudia Katz, Lee Supercinski
Written by Eric Horsted, Michael Rowe, Eric Kaplan, David X. Cohen, Patric M. Verrone

Starring Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio

Runtime 1 hour, 27 min.
Worldwide Gross N/A
Genres Comedy, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Adventure

Debuting on television in 1999, Matt Groening's futuristic space comedy "Futurama" was on for four seasons before being cut off the air. Despite good reviews and three Emmy Awards, the program was put to shame by FOX's lack of support and constant changing of the show's timeslot. Once being rebroadcast by late night programming, "Futurama" found itself a strong audience and steady support for the show's revival. Five years later, what fans get is a series of four straight-to-video films. The films were so successful, a new season of television shows are now being produced for airtime on Comedy Central. Bender's Game is the third in the video series.

What "Futurama" was known for was its intelligent humor, as well as its zaniness and originality. Though the humor is still present in Bender's Game, what lacks is the series' sophistication and charm. From five years ago, "Futurama" has seemed to decreased in its quality, taking cheap jokes and easy laughs. The series was much more detailed than these videos are. Everything just seems dulled down for the 20-year-old bachelor crowd. Where's the intelligence and subtle comedy that used to be the soul of this program? I hope they haven't gotten lost in the five years of the show's hiatus.

What is still hear as loud as it was originally is the writers' use of imagination. The plot is fun, fresh and original. In this adventure, the Planet Express crew becomes concerned with business conglomerate MomCorp monopolizing the fuel industry. With gas prices and tensions rising, the gang goes to the MomCorp HQ to try and stop the madness, with damaging and equally interesting results. The voice acting is still marvelous, with each line dripping with the talent of a powerful cast. The animation is crisp as well. It's finely polished and well done. You can tell they put a lot of effort in keeping with the visuals of the television series.

Sadly, I fear that this sharp comedy might be going down the wrong path. Some parts of the story seem rushed. Some plot twists are so quick it makes the film a bit confusing. I never had this problem with the series. Things were showcased beautifully. This is even more impressive since the crew had to force an interesting story into only 22 minutes. But with Bender's Game, they had a whole 90 minutes to use to their advantage. Why did they make the decision to move things at a quicker pace? Take your time. You actually have some of it to spare now.

What Bender's Game succeeds with is its superiority over the two previous films. Though this story's pacing problems might take away from the film from time to time, they're much improved from Bender's Big Score, the first in the Futurama film quadrilogy. This film also is more focused than the second, The Beast with a Billion Backs. So, with what I can tell, the series is definitely getting better. It's just not quite up to the par it used to be. Hopefully these films are simply experimentation until the film's new season and not a change of heart.

Though it might sound like I'm ripping into the film a bit, Bender's Game is definitely worth watching. It's very funny. In fact, I'm actually impressed that the quality of the film isn't worse than it is. With pressure from the currently popular toilet and barf humor in today's comedy, I'm glad that "Futurama" hasn't totally lost its ethics. Though there's some toilet humor in Bender's Game that you wouldn't have seen before, there aren't any "Family Guy"-esque moments that want to make me throw up. That's definitely something to celebrate. Here's to hoping it doesn't get worse!

Bender's Game is currently unrated.

MouseHunt (1997)

3.5 STARS


Directed by Gore Verbinski
Produced by Bruce Cohen, Tony Ludwig, Alan Riche
Written by Adam Rifkin

Starring Nathan Lane, Lee Evans, Maury Chaykin

Runtime 1 hour, 38 min.
Worldwide Gross $122,417,389
Genres Comedy, Family

For me, MouseHunt is cherished film. I have fond memories of watching it when I was younger. However, putting all biases aside, MouseHunt is still great. I used to love The Rugrats Movie too, but that obviously doesn't hold up. This film does. Gore Verbinski, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, puts a lot of effort into his first feature-length film. Nathan Lane and Lee Evans star as the Smuntz brothers, heirs to a failing string factory and a seemingly worthless house. However, after looking into the property, the brothers find that the house is the work of a famed architect and is worth millions of dollars.

After its introduction, the majority of the film profiles the Smuntz brothers in their multiple attempts to rid the house of an intelligent mouse. Though outlandish at times, the plot works in most instances. Ernie Smuntz (Lane) has personal experiences with pests, quipping "A single vermin can bring you down." Ernie's hatred of such pests is explored early in the story, in one of the film's most memorable scenes. But the scene is memorable for all the wrong reasons. To me, it's truly one of the most disturbing things I've ever witnessed in a film. Trust me, in the restaurant scene, when the food gets to the Mayor's table, just close your eyes and wait for the screaming to stop. You'll be better off.

This is something about MouseHunt that I'm a bit unsure of. Are all of the film's gags really needed? Do we really need to see a stereotypically overweight man crunching on a cockroach (yes, that's what happens)? Some of the gags aren't needed, not because of its gross-out factor, but because of their tediousness. Yes, the Smuntz brothers don't have the best luck. We get it. We don't need another crazy antic to convince us of this.

But not all the scenes in Hunt are this way. Most parts are quite funny. It's only toward the end of the film when you might start to tire of the film's slapstick humor. The fact that most of the scenes are unrealistic doesn't phase me. In a slapstick comedy, unrealistic scenes are expected. What's really great about this film is how the actors work with the outlandish things in the script. Nathan Lane is fantastic. Lane's dry wit and sarcastic lines sound perfect coming from his lips. Also fun to watch is Christopher Walken's role as Caesar, an offbeat exterminator. You'll never see Walken in a crazier role and this movie is worth watching for his appearance alone. Lee Evans is decent as well, but some parts of his performance seem very cut-and-paste.

In a film with a lot of things going for it, there is something I had a major problem with. Though screenwriter Adam Rifkin knows how to write some great comedy, he's not so great on developing his characters. At first, Evans' character seems very simple and humane. In a scene he says he's exactly comfortable with killing a little, innocent mouse. In a scene soon after this, he's chasing the mouse around with a mallet with a thirst for death in his eyes. Is this really true to his character? What made him change his mind all of a sudden?

In a year of big box office earnings, MouseHunt slid by almost unnoticed. From the 1.8 billion dollar earning, special effects smash Titanic to action-packed blockbusters The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Men in Black, its nice to find a film from this time period that isn't afraid to be smaller. MouseHunt is a fun little movie, a hidden gem and an underrated production. With great comedy, good acting, a solid story and excellent casting, MouseHunt is a film you wont want to see just once.

MouseHunt is rated PG for language, comic sensuality and mayhem.