|
Bender's Big Score is the first of four direct-to-DVD Futurama
adventures, essentially, a way of saying thanks to the fans for not
allowing the series to die after it was dumped by the Fox network a few
years back. Whether they made the right move is completely up to you!
The flick (it's not so much a movie as it is four connected episodes mashed together) follows the Futurama
crew (Fry, Bender, Leila, etc) fighting to save Earth in an epic battle
against nudist alien Internet scammers (you know the ones: "Click Here
To Enlarge Your Man-Hood", "Invest In An African Bank"). It’s nearly
Christmas 3007 when evil naked aliens launch a cyber-attack on the
Planet Express and make a shocking discovery: the secret of time
travel, mysteriously tattooed on Fry’s butt cheeks.
Using
their devious nudist software to control Bender, the aliens send him
through history where he has run-ins with the likes of Al Gore, Coolio
(yep, apparently he is still alive) and the foul mouthed comic Sarah
Silverman
You're pretty much in one of two camps when it comes
to any spin-off show: Better or Worse than it's parent series. There
are many who feel American Dad is far superior to the broad absurdist comedy of Family Guy, and the same seems to go with those who enjoy the intellectual standards of Futurama over The Simpsons.
For mine, while I always knew there was something cool about Futurama (the look of the show was always superior to The Simpsons),
there always seemed to be something lacking: out-and-out-laughs. And
while I'm still pretty happy to stand my ground on that opinion after
watching Bender's Big Break that
the series has kept it's blandness, it doesn't stop this first DVD
feature from being one damn entertaining bit of animation.
The plethora of in-jokes regarding Futurama's
axing from TV deliver most of the laughs here, while the Time-Travel
story works a treat (takes me back to the days of trying to puzzle
together all the interconnected moments of Back To The Future!) - and most importantly - it looks great.
By
no means the hilariously glorious return it probably should have been
(sometimes it's more appropriate to just let shows die a natural death)
but certainly something which will keep the die hard and semi-regular
fans extremely happy.
...Now if we can only get The Bob Morrison Show back on TV EXTRAS
As this is essentially a episode made for fans, thanks largely to
the fans, no expense has been spared when it come to the DVD extras
included here. There are more than you can poke an R2-Unit at.
In
addition to the never-before-seen movie, there's also a fairly
insightful and funny commentary from Matt Groening and David X. Cohen,
cast members Billy West (is it just me or this guy does pretty much
every animated voice... ever?), John DiMaggio and Phil LaMarr, director
Dwayne Carey-Hill and writer Ken Keeler.
The Futurama folk continue their love affair with Al Gore with the animated promo for An Inconvenient Truth a real highlight.
There's
a bunch of other stuff as well - character and design sketches, a
math lecture - but the real draw card has to be the full 20+ minute
episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad. Why? You know nothing is going to happen - but you simply can't look away: such is the power of the Hypnotoad.
Well worth checking out.
Conclusion:
Movie 75% Extras: 75%
|
