Futurama: Bender's Game (2008)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Argh, this movie is so frustratingly bad! There are a number of flaws which will be detailed below. Basically, the Planet Express crew get sucked into some alternate reality after storming Mom's lair to save Nibbler and a bunch of other Nibblonians...but it takes ages to get to the alternate reality, by the time they do, the movie is halfway over. And then, the "plot" is mostly a whole bunch of pop culture references crammed down the viewer's throat! Enough already, you're referencing popular stuff, we get it, don't overdo it! And the characterization really suffers in this movie too. They take one aspect of a character's personality, and multiply it by ten, and suddenly, you've got a Leela who want's to kill everything and an Amy who wants to sleep with everyone, even the hideous monsters. Jeez, Leela hits people a lot in the show, but nowhere near as much as she does here, and Amy was never so...loose as she is here, she makes out with an Orc, a Mork (don't ask) and even Leela! That last one came right out of left field and was so ridiculously pointless, it didn't even make sense! So yeah, don't watch this movie, you'll be losing more than half of your brain cells, go watch the first two movies or the show instead, but not this or the next movie, which is almost as bad.

Of the first 3 of 4 FUTURAMA movies, I love this one the best. The jokes are almost non-stop, the story moves much faster, and overall, this one was more like the regular episodes are/were...The spaceship demolition race was so cool, and the whole 2nd half was a blast (I never was into Dungeons and Dragons, but enjoyed all the references anyways. I liked LOTR movies, so that stuff was great too, and all the many references to other stuff, I always dig that junk!)Have watched this DVD almost every day since it came out, and still haven't gotten tired of it. It just is so darn good, and the characters are all in top form. Some of the best FUTURAMA writing, jokes, etc., for my money.To paraphrase that garbage scow driver, "If you's likes FUTURAMA's, then you's justs got-stas gets 'Bender's Game'!"

After two mediocre straight-to-DVD movies, here's the third of four, and it's now safe to say Futurama is a show that could have just as well stayed buried. Bender's Game isn't a disappointment because after the last two, I was expecting this to fall short of the TV series.The number of laughs in this movie are pretty low. That's because some of the jokes are just silly- for example, putting lipstick on dogs. Others are just immature, a blatant joke about something sexual or bathroom humour meant to shock or disgust, as you'd expect from Family Guy at its worst- for example, having Zoidberg say "I'm getting aroused," or the endless fecal jokes. Worse, the latter turns out to become the main plot of the movie- it's about feces. Not exactly pleasant. Then it becomes a tribute to Dungeons and Dragons- I suppose that may appeal to people who love that game, but I couldn't relate. The AV Club compared this unfavourably to Simpsons episodes where the Simpsons become Biblical or legendary characters.The part about the Demolition Derby seems pointless, the only consequence is that Leela has to wear a shock collar, which disappears when they enter the fantasy world anyway. I guess the shock collar was a little funny, but Leela being shocked when first told when it would shock her (for example, when she curses) was predictable. For that matter, so was the twist that one of Mom's sons is the Professor's son. On the plus side, Leela and Amy get naked again, this time in a shower scene, but even cartoon nudity can't save this movie.

Direct-to-DVD movie; Genre: Animated Comedy, Science Fiction; Content Rating: Not Rated (contains animated violence and gore and pervasive scatological humor); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 – 4); In the first DVD movie outing the folks at "Futurama" took on internet scammers and time travel. In the 2nd, dating and religion through an intergalactic monster movie. Now in the third feature-length film, "Bender's Game", they cobble together the energy crisis and Dungeons and Dragons. It's a melding that this time could have used a few more trips to the writing table to get it to solidify.In this self-contained adventure, the Planet Express crew suffers from the escalating price of rocket fuel dark matter, provoking Professor Farnsworth (Billy West) to go up against the maniacal head of Mom Corp (Tress MacNeille) who single-handedly controls the supply. Meanwhile, Leela (Katy Sagal) is disciplined for her violent temper and Bender (John DiMaggio) is accused of not having an imagination by the players of Dungeons and Dragons and is driven to robot madness by the game.The first act of "Game" is something of a dream come true. For the first time the crew headed by David X. Cohen, Matt Groening and director Dwayne Carey-Hill ("Bender's Big Score") take advantage of the feature-length running time to slow things down a bit. The first act is a refreshing turn of a character comedy for this normally lightning-fast sci-fi satire in which details set-up in the series are brought to a head, notably some repressed anger from Leela toward Zoidburg and her appropriately hilarious reaction to a shock collar, a somewhat clever flashback to Nibbler's first meeting with the crew and the long promised next epic confrontation with Mom. As possibly the show's best villain, it's welcome to see this Mom story finally realized and MacNeille is something of a powerhouse in the voice performance. This is her time to shine. This section of the movie is in flashes some of the best work the show has done.While D&D is established early and often, it still doesn't help cushion the wild, hard left turn the movie takes from its energy/Mom story to randomly and literally (and I do mean literally) dropping the characters into a D&D fantasy world. In this section the moderately funny, full of potential story is completely abandoned and the movie curls up and dies. Cohen, Carey-Hill and company totally indulge in their nerdiest impulses and to hell with the story. More disappointingly, they choose to parody some of the most obvious and mainstream fantasy sources – mostly "Lord of the Rings". The characters are put into a mix-&-match parody blender. All of a sudden Leela is a centaur, Fry is Frydo who acts like Gollum, the Professor is Gandolf who takes a "Star Wars" turn and Zoidburg is a giant cave monster. "Futurama's" strength has always been that it isn't mainstream. "Game" is a broad, easily accessible palette cleanser of toilet humor and forced gags after the sharp, iconoclastic and surreal "Beast With A Billion Backs" - which for my money is still the triumph of the movie series so far.The D&D section of the film didn't have to be a mindless lost cause. But the "Futurama" crew doesn't in any way make an attempt to resolve the first and 2nd acts of the movie with it. As randomly as our heroes entered the world, they leave it just in time for a quick wrap-up. The Game portion of "Game" is head-slappingly obvious filler that will probably send most viewers to the show's famously great commentary tracks for an explanation (Cohen and Groening give nothing). Instead of the creative or scientific explanation we've come to expect from Futurama, "Bender's Game" leaves us with the classically disappointing "It was All a Dream" ending. It's a punch in the face.The movie is randomly entertaining and I do love the extended mix of the show's theme that plays over the credits, but this is a hard one to recommend even to hardcore fans of the show.* * ½ / 4