The Wong’s are planning a giant put-put golf course that threatens to take out 12% of the Milky Way as well as a very special planet that could be the key to all life in the Universe – and it’s up to Fry, Leela and Bender to stop them.
They said when the plan was put forth to bring back Futurama in straight to DVD movie form – that they would put out the strongest story first just in case they get shut down again. So, does that mean in this their final straight to DVD movie – that this is the weakest story? Yes. Yes, it does.
First off – it’s apparent where the episode break is – as the first third of the “film” has very little to do with the last two-thirds. It’s like an episode tacked on to draw out the “film” so it can be “feature length”. Plus, the whole cast doesn’t all spend enough time together – doing their usual hijinx – which is disappointing if Comedy Central didn’t pick up the show again and we weren’t getting new episodes shortly.
The plot revolves too much around Leela’s Femi-environmentalist group – and Fry’s secret society – which keeps their story from wrapping up in a nice tidy bow. Bender got his own mini-story in the beginning with seducing the Don-bots dame – which didn’t he do before in an actual episode or something? Then Bender teamed up with Brannigan – to double-cross his best friends then turn the tables on his own double-cross (a classic Bender move – but not unexpected – hence I spoil that surprise here w/o fear). Farnsworth is left with the b-crew – of Amy, Hermes, Zoidberg and Scruffy (you know - the janitor) – but those characters are like flavoring for the other three to play with – so nothing interesting happens there.
It’s got a good positive eco-message – that wouldn’t be so overbearing if the crew was together – but with each character having their own thing going – it felt completely overbearing and boring (where’s Al Gore’s cameo – wasn’t he in all the other 3 Futurama “movies”?).
There was a few good laughs – but nothing that’s as memorable for me to stand up and tell you “good news everybody” – but since that’s usually followed by bad news – maybe I should be saying it loud and clear?
I guess – I’m not really all that mad – and the annoyance of the “movie” dissipates with the knowledge that this weak-ass piece of space junk isn’t the last we see of the Planet Express crew. They left the door open nicely – though Fry shouldn’t have told Leela that he loved her in the final seconds – because now it feels like they tried to wrap it up last second with the piece of crap story – instead of still crossing their fingers that they had a deal in the works.
My first viewing I was equally perplexed by this “movie” – but I gave it a 4 out of 5 – this my second viewing – I’m going to stick with that rating – and hope that it becomes one of those episodes that I need to watch several times to really appreciate. (Though it’s more along the lines of a 3 if I was rating it like I rate everything else)
[directed by Peter Avanzino]
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