Saying that I enjoy a Seth Rogen movie is like saying the Jews enjoyed their trip to Auschwitz…Ah but I’m Jewish, so I can make that joke and it’s not anti-Semitic right? That’s what Seth Rogen believes. It feels like a millennia ago that This Is The End was released and I loved that movie. A bunch of arrogant self-absorbed celebrities playing themselves in the apocalypse was a great original idea. But even then I noticed that Seth Rogen was starting to become a one trick pony. As time when on, I became less and less tolerant of Rogen and his brand of comedy and when you add Evan Goldberg to the mix, you are guaranteed to fly off the rails of the funny train. I don’t really understand why so many people give him a pass. When I saw the trailer for Sausage Party, I immediately groaned because I knew exactly what I was in for. The film may be an animation but the script might as well be copy and pasted because if you’ve seen one Rogen movie, then you have seen them all and I’ll explain why.

Sausage Party is a story about groceries in a Shopwell’s supermarket. The food spends their days dreaming of being chosen by the Gods (customers) go to a greater place. You can probably already see where this is going. Before I saw this movie, I decided to make a checklist of Seth Rogen tropes that are in the film and how often they occur. My checklist included but was not exclusive to: Gay jokes, Dick jokes, Weed jokes, Racist jokes, Sex jokes, Religion jokes, characters doing drugs, characters smoking weed, Nazi references, and someone showing their dick and/or balls. After the first 5 minutes, I literally gave up counting because they hit every single trope in the book in just the opening act but to be fair, no one showed their penis.

If I can describe the joke structure of this film, 75% of the jokes are sex jokes, 15% of the jokes are racist jokes, 5% are gross-out, and 5% are actually funny. This movie is offensive. Now I’m not a prude towards foul language or being politically incorrect but there’s a line between politically incorrect and flat-out racist. While some will give Rogen and friends a pass for this because they are leftists, I won’t. This film takes offense to everyone you can imagine. Black People, Asians, Mexicans, White People, Jews, Muslims, Christians, everyone will take offense to something, some more than others. The film tries to get away with this with the “Well if we get a Mexican to tell this joke, we can’t get called out for being racist” excuse. The problem with this line of thinking is these jokes aren’t jokes. You aren’t being clever with your joke telling, you’re just using offensive stereotypes to get a cheap laugh. Example, the obvious Muslim character that has big eyebrows and is angry all the time hates the Jewish characters and wants to go to a ‘greater place’ so he can get 72 virgins oils. But it’s funny because Muslims really believe they are getting 72 virgins in the afterlife and they all hate Jews (#NotAllMuslims). The black character curses a lot and hates white people, the Asian character looks like a Mr. Yunioshi because they are Asian, you get the picture. Animated groceries are abusing the words shit and fuck and it’s funny because they are animated. There isn’t any real dialogue, just people cursing because ‘Hey it’s an adult cartoon, listen to us say Fuck and laugh!’, ‘Hey look this hot dog is refinancing his dick, isn’t that funny?’, ‘Hey look, this German product is a Nazi because it’s German, right?” The very first word said in the movie is shit. There doesn’t seem to be any thought, structure, or cleverness put into this film and we’ve seen this before.

I guess we should talk about the plot, like it actually matters. Seth Rogen’s character of Frank (Haha) discovers that everything the groceries have been told about the ‘afterlife’ is a lie. So he must prove to the others that their beliefs are false with indisputable evidence. Yep just in case you thought being Hispanic was the only running joke, the plot of the film is based on debunking religion as well. Don’t worry Christians, you aren’t the only one to be make fools of, once your fellow Muslims brothers see their character have gay sex with a Jewish person, I’m sure they will be just as upset as you.  The film’s ending is the food deciding to have one massive 2 minute long orgy…

For those who think I’m too hard on this film, ask yourself this? Did you give Adam Sandler a pass? I mean every time Adam Sandler makes a movie, the media and critics rake him over the coals. The way I see it, the only difference between Sandler and Rogen besides their voting records is the fact Sandler has been doing his same tired shtick for a couple of decades. But why do people hate Sandler so much? They complain about his tired shtick, his films being vulgar, tasteless, mean-spirited and offensive. If Adam Sandler is terrible for those reasons, why do we give Seth Rogen a pass for doing the same thing?  Rogen and Sandler even have the same distributor in Columbia Pictures and Sony so what’s the difference? Do we really need 20 years of mediocre to bad Rogen films before we can admit there is a problem?

Condescending is the best way I can describe Sausage Party and the film seems to bask in it. Seth Rogen is the wrong person to try to deliver a message no matter what it is. Usually, I feel bad for the actors who have to be in films like this. Kristen Wiig, Salma Hayek, Bill Hader, Paul Rudd, Michael Cera…ok Cera is probably happy just to get work, but everyone seems perfectly fine with being involved in this film. I feel mentally tapped out with the Rogen/Goldberg Empire. I was ready to give this movie my first -5 star review but that would be going too easy on the film. So I decided to update my rating system to fit how I felt. If you haven’t caught on to Rogen yet, if you have the maturity of a toddler, or if you are just tripping balls, you may find this film entertaining. Me however, this is one of the worst movies of the year and would probably be #1 in a world where Sacha Baron Cohen doesn’t exist. I’ve said everything I could possibly say about this film, all that is left is my rating.

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