Some spoilers
I watched "Sausage Party" this week and it was surprisingly good. This is what I had to say about it.
The cartoon tells the story of sentient food items and their frantic adventure through the world of the supermarket. The protagonist is a wiener, aptly named Frank. His aptly-named girlfriend, Brenda, is a bun. The "foods" are very much human in character, and even more so in their diversity. The film points out how the supermarket is a conglomeration of multitudes of food items, just as a global society is home to a plethora of cultures and stereotypes – the cup noodles are Asian, the pita bread is a Middle-Easterner, and the They lead an ignorant existence, believing that humans shopping the aisles are gods, and that to be chosen/bought by these gods will help them enter heaven. Their views, just like ours are divided. Some imagine a great reward in the “afterlife," and others see damnation and destruction. They eventually get bought, and bear witness to the brutalizing of their fellow comrades by a housewife. This realization leads the protagonists, who survive, to return to the supermarket to warn their friends, about the “truth”, that humans eat food.
This all seems quite blasphemous, but this outlandishness allows sensitive topics such as religion, race, drugs and sexuality to be explored. The gags and shenanigans are so inappropriate that they make these subjects seem almost polite and tolerable, when in fact, they are not. Perpetual gratuitous underhanded jokes and shenanigans culminate in the closing sequence, where the foods engage in a graphic orgy. With that in mind, I guess it is true that we aren't likely to take a bunch of talking hot dogs seriously.
That being said, it does highlight how we are sometimes ignorant to the obvious truths of our existences, and how we often take the esoteric and the supernatural for granted. It does not take an atheist view, but presents an agnostic form of religious exploration -- the gods (humans) do exist, but they are just plain bad. This also parallels the oppressive societies we live in nowadays, with supreme ruling entities "playing God" in politics and in business.
Ultimately, "Sausage Party" does end off on a positive note of free love and acceptance, and sometimes, I feel like that’s what the world really needs these days.
The film is not a Pixar production, but shares the same level of polish expected from a Pixar film, although the animation and graphics quality is not on par. The style is very much in homage to "Toy Story," and breathes life into our processed food friends. It is a very funny watch, but it’s very "slapstick" and not for everyone.
