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ATHF: Not enough laughs to fill 90 minutes
Several years ago, my friends and I would meet up at my buddy Pope’s house, fire up the grill, crack open a frozen bottle of Tito’s and sit back and laugh to the point of tears at the absurdity that is Adult Swim’s ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force.’ The ritualistic gathering celebrated the rapid-fire, bite-size portions of ridiculous hilarity of these anthropomorphic food items. Unfortunately, the attempt to stretch that tasty morsel of comedy gold into a 90-minute meal with the new ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters’ fails rather miserably.
Fans of the show will certainly be the only folks lured into paying $8 to go see animated fast food endure an intergalactic journey to discover the nature of their origin/defeat the evil mastermind behind a Frankenstein exercise machine/do whatever the hell it is the supposed plot of this film purports to be, but even they will most likely be disappointed.
The joy and beauty of the ATHF cartoon has always been the strong characters writers Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis concocted in their twisted minds, and the relationships between these victims of unknown circumstance. The sweet, confused Meatwad (voice by Willis) and uncontrollably sardonic, sex-crazed Master Shake (Dana Snyder) constantly wear on the thin patience of blaxploitation-influenced Frylock (Carey Means), the elder of the group who must repeatedly keep his outrage in check. The frenetic dialogue of the three characters harkens back to the interplay of the Three Stooges.
Sadly, in “ATHFCMFFT” the dynamic among the three is generally lost in a sea of confused narratives — the writers seem to have written one sequence, woken up the next morning and written the next without ever having gone back to look at what they had written previously. Unlike most television shows-cum-movies that exhaust one contrived bit for 90 minutes, “ATHFCMFFT” schizophrenically skips from one plot device to the next, never fully engaging the audience. To their credit, I guess, the filmmakers remained true to the intention of the show: always be ridiculous and make as little sense as possible. But, as with most pyschedelia, it is more palatable in smaller doses.
There are few moments of the brilliant, caustic, and generally deadpan, wit that make the television show such a joy, but they are too few and far between. In fact, the biggest laughs probably come in the title sequence, which had me laughing out loud. So, if you go, get thee to the theater on time, a task I would imagine may be asking a bit much from this film’s target demographic.
If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll probably see the film regardless of my advice, but I suggest you wait for the movie to come out on DVD. And in the meantime, fire up the grill, break out the beverage of your choice and take in some Adult Swim to get your ATHF fix.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Movies
Comments
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By erin
April 13, 2007 1:21 AM | Link to this
They never should have tried to make this a movie.
By orly
April 13, 2007 10:24 AM | Link to this
Sounds like some good advice. I feel the same way with the SNL movies , they are intended to be short to the point , and in keeping with those guidelines, were nothing but hilarious, but when stretched out into 140 min. movies we end up with Corky Romano or The Mary Katherine Gallager movie SuperStar. So thank you M.O. Not to mention (it being Friday 13th 10:18 a.m.) I can get a high quality DVD version of the movie by……………..let’s say 3:30 p.m. Got to love the inter-net. Or if “in the right state of mind” I could shell out a Twenty and go to the movies to watch , who knows “when in that state of mind” i’ve been known to do some pretty dumb things.
By Forehead
April 13, 2007 11:15 AM | Link to this
You better check yo vibe!