Tripping the Rift: The Movie
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Movie Reviews of Tripping the Rift: The Movie
Movie Review: "You know, four movies went into the making of this film..." -- MST3k
Summary: 1 Stars
The back cover of the DVD case screams, "Foul Language! Senseless Violence! Gratuitous Nudity! It's A Real #@!*&% Movie!" While that last claim may be stretching the boundaries of the definition of "movie", I vastly agree that those promises have been fulfilled.
But there is a problem.
Despite all the rudeness, despite all the over-the-top excesses, despite all the foul language and salty dialog, the movie is not actually funny.
Now, before criticizing the film's drawbacks, it should be noted that this almost can't be considered a movie at all. According to information I spent sheer minutes researching on the Internet, this is not a feature-length movie based on the television series of the same name. Rather this is three or four random episodes of said television series edited together into a seventy-five minute whole. The story-line jerks wildly from place to place with no thought given to structure or pacing. Audiences won't have been this confused since Robert Denby randomly appeared halfway through RIDING WITH DEATH with only a crudely attempted ADR to explain his presence.
Out of a sense of obligation rather than for any real desire on my part, I will attempt to give a brief summary. A band of intergalactic misfits travel around the galaxy and have adventures; think "Futurama" but with more sleaze and less laughter. In this film, they get hired as bodyguards for a princess, plan a birthday part for Chode (the short, purple, tentacled thing), escape from a robotic assassin of the future, and hang out in an episode of Desperate Housewives.
There are a lot of movie and television parodies, but the film doesn't do anything interesting with the source material. The producers mostly just repeat scenes from other films without actually making them funny (or even different). And that's emblematic of this film's main flaw. It goes to a lot of trouble to set up a platform on which to tell jokes, and then it completely forgets to tell jokes.
I could almost forgive this film had it tried its hand at comedy but failed. The problem is that it barely even tries. It seems to believe that naughty language by itself will make anyone laugh. It confuses simple duplication of well-known cinematic set pieces with parody. And it simply gives up when attempting new material. These days, there are a lot of choices when looking for science-fiction comedies; try one of those other options instead.
Movie Review: Exactly what you'd expect: crude and funny!
Summary: 4 Stars
Look, it's computer-generated animation and decidedly limited in what it looks like. So, whatd'ya want? This is really funny. The actions are a little simple and so is all of the college-level modeling; Give that, RIFT THE MOVIE is pretty well assembled and really great and dumb viewing.
Chode gets himself in some procreatin' trouble and is chased by a Terminator from the future, across a black and white horror parody, settling back in a Desperate Housewives segment and pursued through an Indiana jones jungle adventure. And that's just the overview: tons of dirty, foul-mouthed gags that are lowest common denominator one-liners and that's it in a nutshell. If your concept of humor is Adult Swimmin' through animated vulgarity, well, you're probably one of my buddies. RIFT's a darn funny DVD that you can hang back with among your idiot buds and cheap pizza to watch.
Totally worth rewatching just to catch all of the stuff that you missed and relaugh it all.
Movie Review: I can't believe they call that a MOVIE!!
Summary: 2 Stars
That is just ridiculous..that so called movie is in fact 3 episodes put together. Actually, I saw them on TV last week. That was just a failed attemp to make money on our backs..Movie Review: Movie falls short in entertainment value compared with television series
Summary: 2 Stars
It's an acquired taste.
Tripping the Rift (the television series) is a hands-off parody of many of the current "hit" sci-fi and fantasy shows. Lead character Captain Chode (a topologically equivalent Gumby) has sex and fortune on the brain... at all times. His crew, a bizarre and unmatched collection of a lizard nephew, a sex slave android, a three-breasted cross between a cow and a centaur, a gay C-3PO, and a neurotic HAL 9000, roam the galaxy having... "sex and fortune on the brain" -related adventures that tend to spoof the other sci-fi and fantasy shows.
As a fan of shows like Futurama and The Simpsons, and movies like Galaxy Quest and Spaceballs, I appreciate this creative finger-poking. The television series is a fast-paced romp through a sci-fi fantasy land.
Then there is Tripping the Rift (the movie).
First, I would guess that the movie makes little sense to the Tripping the Rift neophyte. Just who ARE these characters, and why are they the way they are?
Then, the plot and action of the movie is, well, boring. The writers try to bring in elements of Desperate Housewives, The Terminator, Star Trek, Young Frankenstein, and other shows for... the sake of doing it. Frankly, it doesn't work. The plot falters because the focus seems to be on the parody gags, and not the story.
So... if you are intrigued by what you've heard about Tripping the Rift, stick with the television series. Don't feel bad... this happened to The Simpsons' movie as well.
Movie Review: Tons of Raunchy Jokes Bring a Few Mild Snickers
Summary: 2 Stars
Spaceship captain Chode and his oddball crew travel around trying to make a buck and get their jollies in the process, and this time they may be in over their head. After narrowly escaping a sticky situation involving a murdered princess they were hired to protect, they find themselves on the run from a Terminator-like clown robot on a mission to destroy sex-addicted Chode before he commits a particularly offensive act. Will Chode's struggle to survive interfere with his throwing the thriftiest birthday bash ever?
I have to admit that this was my first time really sitting and watching an entire tale of the computer-animated saga "Tripping the Rift". One would think "The Movie" would be an okay way to be introduced to it. However, I had sampled bits of the TV series a few times before and judged it to be overloaded with sex jokes that simply weren't very funny, and the movie turned out to be exactly that way too. The making-of featurette on the DVD, which has some great interviews from a cast that boasts some well-respected voice talents like Maurice LaMarche and Stephen Root, gives the impression that the series itself might be a bit smarter than this rather messy movie, but I'd have to see it to believe it. There's really nothing clever about this film at all. Besides mostly unfunny sex jokes and gay jokes galore, the only other real attempt at humor is through spoofing famous films and TV shows. Unfortunately, this also isn't done too well most of the time. The Terminator parodying wasn't bad, but the rest was hit and miss, and mostly miss. For example, in the beginning, they do a "Young Frankenstein" spoof. Look, you can't really spoof a spoof. It's not that funny. The best you can do in that case is rip-off jokes. The filmmakers also seem to think that foul language is hilarious for adult animation viewers. Look, I love some movies that have very foul language, but never for the foul language itself. In this film it seemed totally gratuitous. Now and then, okay, but nearly every other world? I wasn't buying it. In the end, it hurt the film. And, with all this sex talk, they could have made it a lot more titillating. It really wasn't very. The "sexy" females really never were very attractive, not even Chode's own sex slave, Six, whose face and hair are so awful the overdone rest of her doesn't matter much. Of course, I've never gone for the porn star look, and I'm sure that's what they were going for. Overall, you might get a few chuckles out of this one, but it's by no means a "must see". If you're looking for animation geared more towards adults, check out the original "Heavy Metal", or other classics like "American Pop" and "Rock and Rule", certain shows from Cartoon Network's Adult Swim (Futurama is a better answer to this sort of humor, and Family Guy is great too), or the huge selection of Anime out there (which is a much better place to look if you want something sexy). And don't underestimate the smartness and adult-appeal of stuff you may think is just for kids at first glance, like Disney or Garfield. Anyone can enjoy animation, but there is far better animation out there than this one. It's okay for one viewing if you're really curious, and I suppose you might love it if you love the "Tripping the Rift" the TV show. Besides the making of featurette, the trailer is also included, and the presentation is in anamorphic widescreen.