Review: 'Sausage Party' Is Raunchy, Raw And One Of The Most Outrageous, Funniest Movies Of The Year

Note: With Sausage Party in theaters this weekend, we're re-running our review from San Diego Comic-Con.Seth Rogen has said on a number of occasions that the desire to make his own animated movie came from a love for Pixar movies. Even though he didn't exactly grow up on them as a child (he was already 14 when the first Toy Story arrived in 1995), he's still loved them immensely as an adult. However, if Rogen was going to attempt to make his version of a Pixar movie, you know it wasn't going to be anywhere near family friendly.Sausage Party had a special screening here at Comic-Con last night, and the final result of years of development, test screenings and hard work is an outrageous comedy that brings the laughs hard, and all the most raunchy and raw hilarity hasn't even been touched by the movie's marketing.

Get our full Sausage Party review after the jump.

As the trailers have already perfectly laid out, Sausage Party follows a crew of food friends from a grocery store who couldn't be more excited to go home with humans. For them, leaving the aisles of the Shopwells supermarket means they're heading to the "great beyond" by way of the merciful "gods" who take them right out the door. However, when one honey mustard jar (Danny McBride) ends up returning from the great beyond, he comes with wild, worrisome details of a horrifying truth about what actually lies on the other side for food.

However, much of the story focuses on Frank the hot dog (Seth Rogen) and Brenda the hot dog bun (Kristen Wiig) after they get left behind at the store following the desperate act of Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) jumping out of the cart to his death, resulting in a cart collision and several items being thrown from a woman's cart just before heading home, creating a Saving Private Ryan war zone of death in the grocery aisle.

This is the catalyst for everything that happens in the story because it creates the villain, an angry douche (voiced by Nick Kroll) who is more than angry that he won't be able to serve his purpose of getting up inside one of the gods, and it sends Frank and Brenda on a journey around the grocery store as Frank tries to determine if there's any truth to Honey Mustard's claims, while Brenda is extremely resistant to even thinking about the idea of the gods actually doing horrifying things to the food. Meanwhile, outside of the store, Frank's hot dog friends try to figure out how to get back to the store.

What's surprising about Sausage Party is all the commentary on religion, which isn't something that's a subtle metaphor for you to parse out between jokes. It's pretty much in your face the whole way through, but not annoyingly so. It doesn't offer any groundbreaking approaches or ideas to add to the heated discussion between those who believe in a higher power and those who don't, but it does show, in a vulgar, ridiculous and funny manner, why the way we handle talking about religion with other people is so frustrating and unnecessary.

Sausage Party Review

Don't worry, Sausage Party never gets overtly preachy because this thematic element is just used as the driving force for the story. There are still endless food puns (including a great recurring gag that just pisses off the Douche more and more as it happens), plenty of dirty jokes, mostly about the food having sex with each other, and a cavalcade of incredible voice talent that makes the proceedings that much better.

Some of the highlights of supporting characters include a Jewish bagel (Edward Norton) and Middle Eastern lavash (David Krumholtz) constantly at each others' throats, and a trio of non-perishables voiced by Bill Hader, Craig Robinson and co-director Conrad Vernon. Plenty of the characters end up being racial stereotypes based on their foods, but it's played up for so many laughs in such a hilarious way with everyone getting mocked.

But easily the funniest and most shocking parts of Sausage Party come in the end, bringing a surprising amount of violence beyond food being eaten, and one of the most dirty, perverted, twisted climaxes you've ever seen in an animated movie from a major motion picture studio. Seriously, it's a miracle that this movie was made by Sony Pictures, and you won't believe what this movie gets away with, all because the characters are food instead of people. Plus, it sets up the idea for what could be an amazing sequel, but we won't spoil that here.

Sausage Party doesn't bring any innovation to filmmaking with its raunchy animation, and sometimes the progression of the story feels a little clunky. But all of the parts that work and hit hard with raucous laughter make up for some of those shortcomings. In the end, Sausage Party is one of the funniest movies of the year, bringing a plethora of jokes that will offend everyone in the best way possible.