FUTURAMA: INTO THE WILD GREEN YONDER (2009)

What's supposedly the last of the straight-to-DVD installments of FUTURAMA has hit and it's probably the best of the batch next to BENDER'S BIG SCORE (2007), but that's not necessarily a ringing endorsement. It's an entertaining enough way to pass eighty-eight minutes, but it didn't by any means knock me out.

The Planet Express gang are having a kickass business holiday on Mars Vegas while Professor Farnsworth is paid vast amounts of cash to look the other way yet legally verify that all of Leo Wong's — intern Amy's dad — environment-raping development of a totally new Vegas landscape is kosher. The environmental ravaging draws the attention of some very vocal eco-feminists but their protests fall on deaf ears as Leo Wong puts his plans for a miniature golf course into action, uncaring that it will lay waste to an entire planetary system, and at the heart of this system is a violet dwarf star that holds an incredible secret of great importance... During all of this, Fry develops the ability to read minds and gains membership in the Legion of Mad Fellows, Bender hooks up with the wife of the robot Mafia's DonBot, Amy and Leela fall in with the eco-feminists and unintentionally murder the headless corpse of Spiro Agnew (don't ask) and towering "space hero"/asshole Zapp Brannigan is called in to bring the eco-feminists to justice.

INTO THE WILD GREEN YONDER is entertaining enough, but it proves once again that FUTURAMA works best in self-contained half-hour doses that allow the jokes to fly fast and furious while maintaining a brisk pace. To varying degrees, all of the DVD movies are a bit overlong and a lot of the material seems included solely for the purpose of padding out the running time, as seen in this installment's subplot of Bender and the mob wife; that plot is introduced and goes absolutely nowhere, contributing absolutely nothing to the overall plot. In fact, that subplot could have been completely excised with no discernible effect on the rest of the feature. The eco-feminists when first seen appear to be a one-off gag, but their presence throughout the film becomes quite tiresome and predictable, leading Leela into behavior that is wildly out of character for her, and that flaw mars the last third of the film. In fact, I think it says a lot that the funniest thing on the DVD is a special feature that allegedly takes us behind the scenes of the making of FUTURAMA and reveals that every single creative task needed to make the series is handled by actress Lauren Tom, the voice of Amy. This segment is laugh-out-loud funny and should not be missed.

While it's always fun and entertaining to once more immerse into the well-realized world of FUTURAMA and its loony cast, this film kind of just chugs along until the secret of the violet dwarf star is revealed — a secret that turns out to be worth the wait and rather cosmically awesome — and displays considerably less wit than I know the filmmakers are capable of. What happened? Did the writers just lose interest? I hope not, because there is talk of bringing FUTURAMA back from the sepulcher of cancellation and if that's the case I'd like to see a return to the form that made the show the most unique of the Fox stable of animated shows and a beloved classic among sci-fi humor geeks. But until then INTO THE WILD GREEN YONDER will have to serve to hold us FUTURAMA fans over until the series is resurrected, and I'd like to see that happen sooner than later thanks to the film's wide-open-for-a-sequel ending.

FUTURAMA: BENDER'S GAME (2008)

What does it say about a made-for-DVD FUTURAMA movie when the one thing in it that made me laugh out loud was an extra in which Bender's PSA against video and DVD piracy turns out to be an appeal in favor of such, as well as all other forms of thievery including grave-robbing?

This time around, the Planet Express gang must face rising dark matter fuel prices and discover the secret of the alleged shortage behind it while Bender's development of an imagination leads to not-surprisingly dire results, culminating in a journey to an alternate reality in which all of the characters are recast as Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing types (except for Fry, for no explained reason). BENDER'S GAME is by no means bad and it does feature several amusing bits, but it kind of meandered about for far too long before arriving at the story's selling point, the fantasy parody (written and performed by a cadre of hardcore geeks who know exactly what they're making fun of), and by the time the plot got to that stuff it was too little too late. The fuel-shortage plot could have worked well enough in another story, I suppose, but it hogs up the majority of the first two thirds, only occasionally breaking to set up the journey into fantasy with Bender's loss of his grip on reality and full-blown descent into madness (landing him, straight-jacketed, in a padded cell at the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots). There's also a damned-near-pointless demolition derby sequence early on that for the life of me I cannot determine the need for, and other than seeing a SPACE: 1999 Eagle and the severed heads of George Takei and Scott Bakula battling it out for crash-and-burn supremacy, it isn't really funny. Then there's the fantasy role-playing segment. It's amusing enough for what it is, but its LORD OF THE RINGS riffs come off as taking the easy road, which is especially grating because the writers of FUTURAMA are very creative and anything but lazy in what they do.

So BENDER'S GAME gets my vote as the weakest of the three made-for-DVD FUTURAMA flicks, and, as previously stated, while not terrible, if this is where the series would have gone had it not been cancelled, I would have given up on it long ago, even my love of Bender Rodriguez — the most original and truly entertaining robot personality since Robot on LOST IN SPACE, and he happened forty-three years ago! — giving way to ennui. There's one more of these DVDs scheduled, 2009's INTO THE WILD GREEN YONDER, and though the trailer looked somewhat promising, the same could be said about BENDER'S GAME and that one was just so-so, thus my expectations are minimal. I sincerely hope to be proven wrong because these creators are capable of far better, and it's about time they proved that again.

FUTURAMA: BENDER'S GAME HITS ON 11/4

Charge your rayguns and fuel up the warp drive, kiddies, 'cause FUTURAMA's back in action on November 4th with BENDER'S GAME (love the title!), in which the shit hits the fan once again and the Planet Express gang are once more there to handle said shitstorm (or not).

This one's supposedly loaded to the gills with all manner of geeky-assed Dungeons and Dragons jokes as well as the usual futuristic madness, so I'll be there with bells on.

FUTURAMA: THE BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS (2008)

So I saw the new FUTURAMA made-for-DVD feature, THE BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS, and after the fun and thoroughly entertaining return from the cancellation grave that was BENDER’S BIG SCORE this second movie comes as rather a letdown. As a series, FUTURAMA always prided itself on being clever and having a fairly good grip on the logic of its own universe, but somebody on the creative team was definitely asleep at the wheel this time around.

Picking up about a month after the events in BENDER’S BIG SCORE, the rift in the fabric of the universe caused by the overuse of a one-way time travel code is still there, looming in the sky like a gigantic rip in the ass of the sky’s jeans. While a terrified populace ponders exactly what lies within the anomaly, life goes on as usual for the Planet Express crew as Fry (Billy West) introduces his colleagues to Colleen (Brittany Murphy), a woman he talked into bed after meeting her on the street amid a throng of fearful anomaly-watchers. Seeming to have instantly forgotten his long-held torch for sexy cyclopean mutant Leela (Katey Sagall), Fry moves in with Colleen and discovers that she’s majorly polyamorous, already sharing her apartment with four other live-in boyfriends. Swiftly tiring of his status as a romantic also-ran, an emotionally crushed Fry breaks up with Colleen and stows away aboard an expedition to explore the rift. Meanwhile, Bender (John DiMaggio), feeling rejected when Fry leaves him for Colleen, seeks and gains entry into the legendary League of Robots, a gathering of such notable automatons as Calculon and Hedonismbot who sit around drinking and kvetching about the overall uselessness of humans while doing nothing to further the state of robotkind. But as Bender’s social life takes off, Fry discovers a gigantic, tentacled life form within the anomaly, and the strange being extends its appendages through the rift to physically link with every sentient being in our universe via shoving its tentacles into the back of people’s necks. In no time the world is under the thrall of the alien Yivo (David Cross) and its wiggly cult of universal love, with Fry as its Pope, and a mistrustful Leela uncovers the diabolical secret behind the alien invasion: Yivo’s tentacles are not intended for harmful conquest, but are instead sexual organs with which it seeks to mate with our galaxy’s sentients. Essentially, when plugged into by Yivo an individual is filled with euphoric feelings of love and sexual satisfaction, and Yivo’s only desire is to bond with other intelligent life forms in a mutually beneficial relationship.

The attack (?) of Yivo.

THE BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS may read like a straight-up winner, but it’s FUTURAMA at its most mediocre and even the majority of the voice cast seems uninterested in the proceedings. Bender’s interaction with the League of Robots is at best a throwaway gag stretched past the breaking point and offers nothing to the overall story, while Fry’s sudden hookup with Colleen makes no sense whatsoever in the wake of the previous film’s events; Fry’s deep and unrequited love for Leela is one of the forces that drives the character and makes him sympathetic, so to have the writers suddenly forget that aspect of his personality seems like sloppy and careless writing, a point addressed by the creative team in the commentary and given a pass because they felt that the fans wouldn’t notice it and figure a lot more time had passed between features, thereby allowing Fry some time and emotional distance from the object of his affections. The arcs of the rest of the Planet Express gang don’t amount to much either, and other than a newly-married and widowed Amy getting it on with the ever-assholish Zap Brannigan there’s little else to speak of.

The one saving grace to all of this is the wonderful Yivo, a huge, hermaphroditic alien presence that’s kind of the anti-Starro the Conqueror (look it up) and realizes it has conquered when it should have played fair and courted, so Yivo suggests a “do over,” a second chance at romance that shows us how sweet, considerate and just plain downright lovable the Lovecraftian thing is, resulting in every sentient in this universe legitimately falling in love with it and agreeing to live with it forever on its side of the rift (Yivo’s main body cannot survive the “atmosphere” of our universe). Once there, the sentients discover that Yivo as an environment is what has long been held as the image of Heaven, complete with angels (actually humanoid birds that help Yivo by eating unwanted parasitic organisms), and anything they want or need being available in abundance. The good vibes are so strong that everyone thrives on Yivo’s positive influence and message of universal love, completely shedding their inhibitions and jealousies and existing in a hedonistic paradise. That is, until Bender decides to “rescue” Fry from his fate.

So taken for what it is, THE BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS is worth a look only for FUTURAMA die-hards, and even if you find yourself in that category you will probably be disappointed by what you find, although Yivo does totally rule. FUTURAMA can be considered its own worst enemy thanks to the very high standards it has set for itself, and its creators can certainly do better than this lackluster effort, so let’s all hope that the next feature, BENDER’S GAME, a spoof on fantasy role-playing and all the lunacy that goes with it, is as much fun as its preview trailer. That one’s due in time for the winter holidays, and I’ll be there waiting; FUTURAMA has never let me down before, so it was probably inevitable that sooner or later there would be a clunker of an installment and I’m willing to write off THE BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS as a place-holder until the more riotous-looking followup. Too bad Yivo couldn’t have had a feature as worthy of its inclusion as it deserved…

FUCK THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS: NEW FUTURAMA HITS ON JUNE 24th!!!

The second of the post-network FUTURAMA features arrives on June 24th, and I can't wait to see it. I know it's not for all tastes, but it's definitely my favorite of the FOX-spawned animated stuff and any new installments are as welcome as a nude Monica Belucci with a couple of six packs and a Godzilla movie. There's an early review of THE BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS here and it sounds pretty good, so mark your calendar and get ready for another excursion into sci-fi insanity with the Planet Express crew. And I'll go out on a limb and say it: of the sci-fi comedies that have surfaced over the decades, FUTURAMA is by far the best of the lot, leaving even the vaunted RED DWARF parsecs behind. And as for this new movie, the use of the classic cheesy, 1950's-style horny, bodice-ripping alien on the box art bodes well for sheer ridiculousness. Plus, the art's really good in a pinup kind of way.

I can't wait!

FUTURAMA: BENDER'S BIG SCORE (2007)

When cult favorite FUTURAMA was cancelled by the Fox network two years ago, there were rumors that the animated sci-fi sitcom might someday return as a series of direct-to-DVD features. Well, kiddiewinkies, that day is here and the results are quite encouraging,

The whole Planet Express crew is back and just as crazy as ever, this time weathering the unusual takeover of the Earth by a trio of nude aliens who scam the world into total economic depression. And as if that weren't bad enough, it's revealed that Fry has a previously unknown tatoo of reprobate robot Bender on his right ass cheek — a discovery made during a jaunt to the nude beach planet —

containing a code that allows one to travel backwards through time when it's said aloud. The aliens brainwash Bender into doing their bidding and send him back in time to steal everything of value from the past, a task for which Bender is perfectly suited since he's a robot and won't age and die while waiting for the year 3007 to roll around again. There's also an emotional subplot involving one-eyed, purple-haired hottie Leela meeting the man of her dreams, a situation that in no way sits well with Fry's feelings of unrequited love.

That's about all I can say without giving the whole thing away because the whole story relies on time travel and the complicated thread of events that old sci-fi McGuffin can weave, but unlike the majority of sci-fi stories involving any sort of time-jumping, this one is handled with very tight logic, plotting, and humor that works extremely well. In fact, I recommend that you watch it a second time, with the commentary track running, so you can catch all of the clues and gags that were set up throughout and were intended to be simply glossed over when seen during a first viewing.

It's great to have FUTURAMA back, and this is only the first of an announced quartet of new features — this one's supposedly getting split into four parts for broadcast on Comedy Central — so let's hope they keep them coming at a rapid pace and maintain the high level of quality found here. FUTURAMA was always a fun feast of comedy and spectacular visuals, and this feature actually feels like a movie and not just a glorified episode, something that can't really be said about THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (although, to be fair THE SIMPSONS movie suffered from having been on the air for nearly twenty years and during that time it had covered just about every plot possible for the human mind to conceive). So if you ever enjoyed the whacked-out adventures of the Planet Express crew, sign on now for a solidly entertaining return trip to the future. TRUST YER BUNCHE!

Ah, the lovely Leela, woman enough to take on Captain Kirk in single combat. With moments like this, how the fuck could Fox have canceled FUTURAMA?