Futurama: Bender's Game
|
List Price: Our Price: $13.00 You Save: $16.98 (57%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.98 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Futurama: Bender's Game
Movie Review: Now that's more like it!
Summary: 4 Stars
Well, that's much more like what I want from Futurama!
The last two direct-to-DVD releases, Bender's Big Score and The Beast With a Billion Backs were both ok, but nothing great. But this movie is much more like what I expect from the show.
The story centers around Mom and her efforts at controlling the market in dark matter. Dark matter is what powers all the starships and provides energy in 3008, so the parallels between dark matter and our current situation with oil are blatant and obvious.
The story's sub-plot centers around Bender learning how to play Dungeons and Dragons, and how to develop his imagination. Unfortunately he quickly finds himself unable to separate fantasy from reality and is sent to the HAL Institute for Insane Robots.
Eventually the stories intersect and our heroes end up in Bender's fantasy world, where Lela is a centaur, Zoidberg is a big monster and Fry starts turning into Gollum, lusting after a twelve-sided dice of power.
Along with the usual science fiction references (including a nice bit of fun where George Takei is shouting at Scott Bakula, "Way to kill the franchise, Bakula!"), there's plenty of references to D&D and to "The Lord of The Rings". Fans of both should be very amused.
The format of these direct-to-DVD releases is still something of a problem. The show works best in half-hour installments, not in one long story. I hope after the next one, Into the Wild Green Yonder, they go back to making standard episodes.
One last note: I really hope they stop using these awful cardboard packages! These things are terrible! I understand the desire to "be green" and all that, but most people who buy DVDs don't toss the cases into landfills; they keep them and use them. These cases are a joke, and I'll complain about them every time Fox, or any other studio, uses them. In the future, it might be a deciding point for me when debating a purchase.
Movie Review: Yet another disappointment...
Summary: 4 Stars
Carol Burnett used to do pretty funny movie spoofs. (Her version of GWTW has one of the great comic moments in the history of American TV.) They were so popular she decided to an entire show dedicated to do a take-off on "The Dolly Sisters", a biopic about two Hungarian sisters and their success in American show business ("The Doily Sisters"). It was okay, but at nearly 50 minutes, not anywhere nearly as funny as a 10-minute sketch.
I think the same thing is happening here. Given a story spread over four episodes, the plot starts to swamp the jokes. And that's what we watch "Futurama" for, isn't it, the brilliant humor?
In the first three "movies", there hasn't been a single joke even close to the (admittedly high) level of "St. Pauli Exclusion Principle Girl", or "They changed the outcome of the race by measuring it!".
Not in any way bad, but simply not up to the single-episode quality level. They should have produced 16 single episodes, not four "movies".
By the way, "Bender's Game" (a reference to Orson Scott Card's novel "Ender's Game") ends with a major change to the Futurama universe that (at the moment) makes it look as if Planet Express will no longer be able to flit from star to star. The movie also throws into sharp relief the unanswered question of how Nibbler "just happened" to be in the right place at the right time to intercept Fry's time line (or perhaps it doesn't matter at all).
Movie Review: Strange, yet satisfying.
Summary: 4 Stars
The Futurama crew is back, and boy are they odd. This adventure tries not to wreck your mind too much with all the fancy plot and character development and gets right to the funny. I rather enjoy this return to style that they have missed from the previous movies.
Futurama movies have always had a problem, not enough plot for a movie, thusly leaving a gaping plot hole, down which is crammed seemingly arbitrarily side-plots that somehow morph into the main story through some turn of events. This movie is no different in that respect. However, it does manage to make you laugh, and that is what this is all about, isn't it?
I always enjoy Futurama and I hope beyond hope that some large company somewhere decides to front these folks the money to keep making these episodes for years to come. Also, don't forget to try the Genetics Lab on the DVD, it's a short but fun time-waster.
Movie Review: All three movies
Summary: 4 Stars
I have casually watched the series in the past. Recently, I casually watched a few reruns and started really getting into Futurama. I saw some of Bender's Big Score on TV and then watched the whole movie on DVD.
Of the three, I loved BBS the best. There were a lot of funny jokes and I love how they complexly interwove time travel into the movie. Couldn't watch the whole Hypnotoad episode. Zzzzzz. 5 stars.
The Beast of a Billion Backs was an interesting story but I personally didn't think it was that funny. 3 and half stars.
Bender's Game was funnier than BBB but I'm not crazy about parodies because if you've missed the parodied movie.... In this case, it was the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy. 4 stars.
Still, I am great fan and will purchase the 4 season episodes.
Movie Review: Staying Strong
Summary: 4 Stars
I thought the direct to dvd offerings of Futurama would get progressively weaker, but it seems to be the opposite. With this movie, they seem to be really hitting their stride. Bender's Game which borrows the title from the popular fantasy title Ender's Game from David Eddings series is a really good offering. Filled with so many geeky references that I sadly knew, it is fun just to watch the movie for that. Though it mostly covers the Lord of the Rings, many other popular fantasy and science fiction shows/movies/books are hit as well. I hope they continue with these movies, I will continue to buy them as long as they keep up the quality they have shown with this release.