"Sausage Party" has none of that. It is reaped in no reality whatsoever. Then again, this is the first CGI movie to be R rated so some baggage must come with that distinction and the film, directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, has baggage. At the end of the day the plot about grocery store condiments that try to find a meaning in their lives isn't as shocking as one might expect. There is somewhat of a coherence to the film with its theme squarely rooted in the topic of religion and blind belief. I dug that. Fine, that's a topic I admire quite a bit and the film does raise some interesting points.
However, what "Sausage Party" lacks is top-notch animation. Yes it's CGI, but never does it have the visual wizardry of a Pixar or, hell, a DreamWorks animated movie. That is a problem. If you're going to do CGI you better be up to date with technological advancements that come with it. Of course the budget is not that big, this will be a tough sell because of its R rating, but a little visual creativity would have gone a lengthy way in improving the film.
It has a who's who of actors doing the voice work: Kirsten Wiig, Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Michael Cera and Ed Norton? Yes Norton plays a Jewish bagel with all the Woody Allen-esque eccentricities that come in the playbook. The film has heart, lots of it, but it doesn't really take advantage of its R rating that much, at least not until the last few minutes of the movie where all hell breaks loose. That stuff is great, but what about the rest of the film. It seems as if Rogen and co. were trying to figure out what tone they wanted their movie to be in and just settled for a tame version of the humour that usually infuses Rogen's filmography to adhere to a vast amount of demographics. Did they forget they were making a movie for adults? Who knows.