Animation for adults is a very tricky balancing act. The South Park guys and Ralph Bakshi are masters of it but just doing a parody of Pixar films with sex jokes really just isn’t that funny. Somehow Seth Rogan and his gang thought it was and that’s partly why much of Sausage Party falls flat like a pancake.

Rogan plays the sausage Frank Wienerton, who is waiting to be united with his girlfriend Brenda Bunson (Kristen Wiig). They can’t unite till are made into a hotdog but they don’t realise they will be murdered by humans in the process. They believe it’s the great beyond outside the store. They eventually get picked but it gets botched and they become loose from their package. They must find their way back to their package and they will discover the truth of their existence as groceries in the course of the film.

It’s probably a really good film to get totally blazed to with your “bros” on a Friday night with some tinnies and a pizza to the side. However in a much more “sober” state it’s pretty crass but not in a clever way like the classic South Park or the equally excellent Team America: World Police. The film’s big problem is jokes about racial stereotypes, dick jokes and stoner jokes can only take you so far and it’s funny for about 5 minutes, there is another 84 minutes left to go.

It’s not without laughs and probably just passes the Mark Kermode laugh count of six which is what he judges a comedy on if it’s funny or not on. Ed Norton as a Woody Allen esq. Bagel and Salma Hayek as a lusty lesbian Taco are funny but it’s still very broad stereotypes which eventually tire. Despite being full of stereotypes it’s never mean-spirited which is probably why it escapes from being horribly racist and sexist. The disc is fairly bland with some short featurettes and of course a made up gag reel but their inclusion add little to the film.

★★★

Ian Schultz

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