Tweet
Released by: 20th Century Fox
Released on: November 4, 2008.
Director: Dwayne Carey-Hill
Cast: John Di Maggio, Billy West, Katey Segal
Year: 2008
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
This latest Futurama feature length animated movie begins when the price of dark matter, used as fuel, suddenly skyrockets and the crew of the Planet Express have to take a trip to the only known dark matter mine in the galaxy. Unfortunately this mine is protected by Mom and her crew of thugs, none of whom are too happy to see the ship's crew show up unannounced.
Meanwhile, Bender and a bunch of kids have been playing Dungeons & Dragons. While this might seem harmless enough, once Bender starts using his imagination, there's really no stopping him and before you know it the robot is living his life in a fantasy world. Soon enough, the fantasy world that Bender, who is now going by the name of Titanius Inglesmith and referring to himself as a 'fancy man,' has created collides with the real world where the dark matter problems are escalating, leaving Fry, Leela, Zoidberg and everyone else in a man sized
predicament!
The third feature length Futurama movie to hit DVD since the show was taken off of the air on Fox a few years ago is also the weakest. While the Dungeons & Dragons angle is an interesting idea, it doesn't fit in so well with the sci-fi/futuristic setting and what we're left with is ninety minutes of awkward culture clash. That said, the movie is not without its moments and despite the fact that it isn't as good as what came before, there's enough 'good' here to make it worth watching.
A few fun sci-fi references, including a cameo from George Takai and a reference or two to 2001: A Space Odyssey, keep the laughs coming and a few well played swipes at the Dungeons & Dragons sub-culture do add a fair bit of welcome comedic value. The plot is a bit of a mish mash, it's all over the place until the end where the D&D subplot comes full circle. There are a few pacing problems early on but running gags such as one involving Leela's shock collar (which goes off any time she thinks dirty thought, swears or commits an act of violence) and Nibbler's bowl movements at least add a nice streak of recurring humor to the movie.
Ultimately, this isn't the 'be all, end all'of Futurama content but it's a decent entry in the ongoing series of straight to video feature length movies. Is it as good as the television series that inspired it? No, but it's not a half bad substitute for what once was.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Futurama: Bender's Game is presented in anamorphic 1.78.1 widescreen. Judging by the 'Property of 20th Century Fox' bug visible in the lower right corner of the image and the severe compression artifacts visible, we'll assume that this is not representative of final product and therefore no grade will be given to the transfer.
The only audio mix on this release is an English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround though optional subtitles in English, French and Spanish are included. While the rear channels aren't used quite as often as they could have been there is some nice surround activity in a couple of key scenes that helps to build tension and suspense. Dialogue remains clear from start to finish and there aren't any issues with hiss or distortion to complain about. All in all, the audio is fine.
First up is a commentary track with Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John Di Magggio, Tress MacNeille, Michael Rowe, Claudia Katz and Dwayne Carey-Hill. The group commentary turns out to be a lot of fun with a lot of good natured ribbing and joking around in and amongst stories about how this feature came to be and where a lot of the ideas for the story came from.
Fox has included a few other decent extras on this release as well - check out the Storyboard Animatic (21:45) for the first part of the feature that gives us a look at a very rough version of the first third of the movie. The Futurama Genetics Lab is a fun interactive feature that lets you choose two of the characters from the feature and merge their DNA to see what it would look like if these characters merged.
D&D&F (7:01), which stands for Dungeons & Dragons & Futurama, is an amusing featurette in which David X. Cohen and Eric Caplin profess their love for the classic role playing game while fellow writer Mike Rowe beats them with a baseball bat for being so dorky. From there, we get a look at how D&D influenced the series and the feature itself by way of a look back at some of the D&D monsters that have appeared in Futurama over the years and the cameo from D& creator, Gary Gygax.
How To Draw Futurama In 83 Easy Steps (7:51) lets the animators show us how to draw Zoidberg, Leela, and Bender while 3-D Models With Animators Discussion (5:02) allows the fine folks at Rough Draft Studios to show how computers were used to design and flesh out the spaceships used in the movie.
Rounding out the extra features are a single deleted scene, Cup Or Nozzle? (1:03) that is presented in partially finished form, Blooperama 2 (1:50) which is a selection of outtakes from the voice recording sessions, Bender's Anti-Piracy Warning (1:11), a sneak peek at the upcoming feature length Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder (1:13), and a pair of Easter Eggs. Animated Dungeons & Dragons inspired menus are included, as is chapter selection for the feature.
The Final Word:
D&D fans will get more out of this than most folk but there's still a lot of clever humor and cool ideas here making Futurama: Bender's Game well worth a look for fans of the series.