Futurama: Bender's Game
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Movie Reviews of Futurama: Bender's Game
Movie Review: Good Transaction
Summary: 5 Stars
Ordered this for a Christmas present. It got here on time in brand new condition. Very pleased.Movie Review: Futurama: Bender's Game Review
Summary: 4 Stars
The main cast of Futurama: The Professor (Billy West), Hermes (Phil LaMarr), Leela (Katey Sagal), Bender (John DiMaggio), Amy (Lauren Tom), Zoigberg (Billy West), Nibbler (Frank Welker), Fry (Billy West) as well as Mom (Tress MacNeille) and her three bumbling sons return in this 80-minute special. Futurama: Bender's Game is unlike Futurama: Bender's Big Score and Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs due to this instalment not having a movie feel at all to it. Futurama: Bender's Game is designed to be aired in four-parts when it premières on television and it feels like a four-part episodic.
In the beginning of the film you are first introduced to a Futurama version on "Yellow Submarine". I believe this is just symbolic of how crazy the upcoming scenes get. Whilst driving about in the Planet Express Ship, Leela, Fry and Bender run out of fuel and luckily Nibbler had one ball of dark matter, which was enough to get the ship to a petrol station. The same guy Sal (John DiMaggio) that always seems to be at one of these stations makes fun of the crew's ship. Sal states even though his ship is beat up, he won the Space Destruction Derby five times. Due to Leela's unrelenting anger issues, she decides to enter the derby and later returns the ship severely damaged.
Later, Dwight Conrad (Hermes Son voiced by Phil LaMarr) and Cubert Farnsworth (the Professor's son voiced by Kath Soucie) are playing a game of "Dungeons and Dragons". Bender thinking that it is a form of gambling, wants to join in, only to find out that it is nothing like that. Dwight and Conrad tell Bender that it is the kind of game that you have to use your imagination and anything will be possible. Bender is finally able to use his imagination, but causes him to go mad, believing everything that happens in real life is happening in "Cornwood" (fictitious Dungeons and Dragons land).
The Professor annoyed with Leela's anger issues, has a shock collar put around Leela's neck, so anytime she has any thoughts or act of violence, thoughts of sexual perversion and/or lies, she will be electrically shocked. Mom appears in an interview with Morbo discussing the "problems" of dark matter and that she hopes to take care of them soon. The Professor perturbed at the interview explains how he created dark matter as a usable energy source. He further explains that Mom has the positive crystal and he has a negative crystal that he cannot find. He says that if the two crystals come together, that it will make dark matter useless. Mom tries to avoid the destruction of dark matter by sending her sons as "Owl Exterminators" to retrieve the crystal.
The Professor sees past the boys ruse and finds out that his anti-matter crystal was being used as a die in the Dungeons and Dragons game. Bender having completely gone mad is submitted to the HAL Institute which cannot help his problem. The crew heads over to Mom's base to destroy her crystal. While, the professor is able to get the two crystals to come in close contact, which causes the dark matter to glow, it somehow amplifies Bender's imagination to send everyone to Cornwood.
From this point on the crew are each changed into a Dungeons and Dragon character or a "Lord of the Rings" character. Cornwood is essentially Lord of the Rings with Dungeons and Dragons theme to it. The rest of Futurama: Bender's Game tries to wrap up the convoluted story as much as possible. Overall Futurama: Bender's Game is very silly. This is a good thing as they brought back much of the Futurama humour and have many jokes about things you may have forgotten from the 1990's. I felt that this adventure is a big step in the right direction from Futurama: The Beast with A Billion Backs as this was actually funny. Futurama fans should enjoy this as long as they just relax and enjoy it as it is without preconceived notions and realise it is very silly.
4/5
Picture:
Futurama: Bender's Game is presented in the 1.78:1 (16:9) format. The picture was crystal clear throughout and I could not find any skipping, frozen frames or blur in the picture.
5/5
Sound:
The sound is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. The sound was very well done throughout, but since they decided to make this like the television series, you do not get much in terms of cinematic sound. The voice actors voices were always clearly audible in the centre speaker during the talking scenes, which for some films can sometimes be problematic.
4/5
Special Features:
The special features are rather dull. There are not too many special features and even when you think you find something good such as a deleted scene, it is just a story board with sound. The team that assembled this DVD got rather lazy as far as extra features go.
3/5
Review Round-Up
Movie: 4
Picture: 5
Sound: 4
Special Features: 3
Overall: 4
Final Thoughts:
The first thing I would like to say to Futurama fans is: DO NOT watch this as if it is a film nor should you have ideas floating around in your head about how great/awful it will be. You need to just sit back and watch it as if you are watching the show and enjoy the silliness of this adventure. I found the part when the crew ran into Zoidberg in "The Cave of Hopelessness" and what happens to him reminiscent of Maria in the video game "Silent Hill 2". If you played the game, it may give you a chuckle, if not, you will enjoy it all the same. Whilst, I wish that Futurama: Bender's Game was produced as a film rather than a four-part TV series, it made me chuckle several times. I recommend this DVD/Bluray to fans of Futurama as it is a very silly one that makes up for the disaster that was Futurama: The Beast with A Billion Backs and I definitely recommend this to casual Futurama fans.
Movie Review: Word of the day: Dodecalicious
Summary: 4 Stars
Years after the heart-rending cancellation of Simpsons creator Matt Groening's animated science-fiction comedy series Futurama, mourning fans got thrown a lifeline. Four direct-to-DVD films were to be produced. That is one more thing to love about animation. When a live-action series gets the boot it's almost always curtains. The actors get new jobs, the sets are torn down, and that is that. But all animation needs is good writing, art, and voice talent making coming back from the dead a much easier proposition. Bender's Big Score and The Beast with a Billion Backs proved that the Futurama crew are as funny as ever and that there is still a ton of sci-fi out there to spoof.
"Bender's Game" is the third Futurama film and the first to veer away from the outer-space setting and bring us into the realm of fantasy. The story begins with alcoholic cigar-smoking cleptomaniacal robot Bender heckling a group of nerds playing "Dungeons and Dragons" before realizing that he as a robot has never used his imagination before. Leela has developed anger-management issues and winds up entering the crew's spaceship in an intergalactic demolition derby after being insulted by space-rednecks. Meanwhile, the monolithic corporate entity posing as a down-home granny known simply as "Mom" has engineered a fuel shortage to boost profits (political relevance alert!) after taking control of the universe's supply of dark matter -which all spaceships run on. By the way, in Futurama dark matter comes in the form of cute alien poop. Professor Farnsworth possesses a powerful crystal that can potentially nullify all of the universe's dark matter, thus breaking Mom's control, but can't remember where the hell he hid it. [camera zooms in on 10-sided die being used for D&D game] So long story short: Leela winds up in a shock collar, Bender gets way too into his role-playing, the The Three Stooges are channeled, hijinks ensue, and everybody winds up in a Lord of the Rings parody with the fate of the universe at stake.
Okay, you've got your references to "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in the form of the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots. Turns out Rosie from "The Jetsons" malfunctioned and slaughtered the whole family (nasty business, that). Now that's space comedy. You've got the genre of humor all it's own that is Doctor Zoidberg (why did you think Leela's so mad all the time?) along with brief cameos from various other characters from Futurama history. Plus, Bender: funny, yes? And anybody who has ever wondered to themselves "gee, I wonder what it would look like if Leela and Amy totally made out" can count that curiosity as fulfilled. They're not lesbians if one of them is a centaur, so it's cool. Gotta love college girl logic. Basically, if you are a Futurama fan, this is exactly what you are looking for. I feel the series would be better served as...well, a series but the transition to feature-length is not an uncomfortable one. There are some moments of pure comedic genius, loads of references and gags that only nerds will get, and the same old cast of characters you love, but the length of the feature does spread the laughs out more than in the weekly 20 minute episodes we loved so much. Still, it is Futurama and if you're a fan, you've got to see it.
A with the previous films, there are a lot of special features on the disc. There is a featurette chronicling past references to D&D in the show's history and paying homage to its late creator while the Futurama creators goof around, hit each other with blunt objects, and joke about the 80's scare that RPG's were satanic and would drive American children to madness. I remember it well; I was forbidden from playing. There's also a gene-spicing machine that lets you put any two characters together to make a hybrid of them. Amusing, but only for a short time. There's the usual commentary and preview, a rough version of a deleted scene, a "how-to-draw" art video, outtakes, and a very funny parody of those embarrassing anti-piracy ads. Personally, I'm waiting for the boxed set of all four movies to buy, but if you've already gotten the series and the other two movies then you've already bought this so I don't have to tell you to do so. It will be a sad day when "Wild Green Yonder" is released and the world will once again be sans-Futurama. With any luck, "Everybody Loves Hypnotoad" will get picked up. Love that show!
Movie Review: The Futurama movies are getting better, bit by bender.
Summary: 4 Stars
Futurama was under-appreciated in its time, and I'm glad that it's experiencing a rebirth of sorts. I didn't watch it when it was on the air - it was at the same time too much like The Simpsons, and yet not enough like The Simpsons. In the past four years, however, I've purchased all four seasons of Futurama on DVD, and love each and every episode. The show was GENIUS. The stories are hilarious, irreverent, cynical, hopeful, and even sentimental. The characters are wonderful, and the concepts mind-blowing. I think I enjoy it especially now, in a world where the Simpsons have fallen so low, to such a terrible show, it's nice to remember the genius of the creators, and what once was.
I was ecstatic when I heard that Futurama was coming back, in four movies, to be staggered over a few years. The first two movies were okay. They both started out strong, then lagged in the middle, but were able to pull it out in the end. They seemed too long, as though it was the extra time that made the story lag - as though it would have been perfect for a 30-minute episode, but that the writers just stretched it out to fill time. Why is that? Is Futurama somehow better geared towards a 30-minute time slot? Is that the perfect amount of time - neither too much, nor too little?
It's possible. All I know is that the first two movies were a little too long, and they left too much space in the middle for the view to become confused and/or bored. But, as I said, each movie managed to pull itself together in the end. Because of that, I guess I can say that I liked them. I enjoyed them, because they're a beautiful reminder of Futurama, but I didn't love them. And there's a difference.
"Bender's Game" was a little different than the first two movies. It was held together better, it was tighter, and more fluid. Unfortunately, it too lagged a bit in the middle, but far less than the first two movies. I hope that this is a sign that the Futurama writers are getting their act together again after so many years off. You know how it is, it takes a TV show a season or so to get its bearings, to find it's sense of self. Just think about Seinfeld, Friends, or Sex and the City, and even The Simpsons - when you re-watch the first seasons, it's a little weird. The characters aren't full formed yet. It's conceptual, but not yet real. That's what I'm hoping is going on with the Futurama movies. Hopefully these first few ones are just for the writers to get back in the game, (Bender's game?), and to flex their writing muscles to produce something even greater. Hopefully the final movie will be as wonderful as the series was, and will ensure that more movies are made.
Movie Review: Navy of Moral Dubiousness
Summary: 4 Stars
We've said it before and we'll say it again - it's great to see Futurama back among the living with this series of (almost) movie-length features. "Bender's Game" bounces back strongly from the disappointing last installment, "The Beast with a Billion Backs." That last flick sacrificed plot construction for awkward non-sequiturs and forced gross-out jokes, not to mention a pile of discontinuities with the old first-run episodes. With "Bender's Game" the team has recovered with an intelligent and intricate storyline that ties in nicely with the compelling subplots and mysteries from the first-run episodes, plus a return to some seriously brain-draining theories from mathematics and science (catch the nerdy commentary feature!). A very well-constructed mix of sci-fi and fantasy also draws out some of best comedy moments delivered by the Futurama team in ages.
This flick, while a clear improvement over the last one, still suffers from the effects of stretching out the formerly leaner and meaner 22-minute plots into the 88-minute format. This story's reverential satire of Lord of the Rings (plus a bit of Star Wars and a few other geek classics) goes on too long and ultimately feels like a bit of a time-killer, and there are a lot of awkward cuts among the subplots. Oldtimers may also remain dissatisfied with the inconsistencies in Leela's character - she's just not a steady presence in this movie series.
But here we do get great appearances from some of the best recurring characters from the series, especially Mom and her bumbling sons, the Nibblonians, and (my personal favorite) Roberto. This installment also delivers the most laugh-out-loud moments of any of the three flicks so far - the Morcs being a hysterical example. But there's one mind-boggler at the end - a complete overhaul of most of what makes the Futurama universe tick. Will the writing team make effective use of this showstopper in the fourth and final flick? [~doomsdayre520~]