So far we have had two new Futurama movies thanks to Comedy Central picking the series up from Fox and Adult Swim. The first film, which came out late last year, was the somewhat sub-par Bender's Big Score. The movie had some good moments and some of the old school Futurama smart wit that made the original series good, but overall it was just lacking and was more about fan service the anything.
Now the second movie recently came out, called The Beast with a Billion Backs, and all hope that the second movie would be better then the first flew out the door in a loud dry sucking sound. Actually that isn't fair, the second movie was a little bit better, but not by a lot really. The second movie takes place right after the first and the events that ended the first movie are what lead to the big events in this new flick.Just like int he first film, the story in Beast could of been really cool but ended up being played out and way to hackney in the long run. The first movie dealt with time travel and cosmic events while the second movie deals with a giant cosmic creature who wants to unite everyone. Like I said, both sounded good on paper, but weren't implemented all that well.
Fan service one again seems to be the real drive of this movie just like the first since both movies are purposely trying to address things that happened in the original TV series and are using nearly every fan favorite character they can fit in the movies to give fans a smile. Now I do love nearly every Futurama character there is, but cramming them all together in this manner is like a elephant trying to fit in a Mini-Coop. They try to use every character they can and use them for to many forced jokes and you actually end up getting sick of seeing these great side characters since they become to played out and stale.
As usual though, Fry plays the main character in this movie as well and he seems to be getting stupider and stupider in these two movies. Much like with Homer in the recent Simpsons seasons, Fry seems to be loosing his main drive as well as character type. Instead of being the lovable happy go-lucky goof who is still getting use to the year 3000 and has many weird adventures, he has become a pathetic sap who wants nothing but love and acts so insanely emo when he can't find love. All the other characters of course act the way they normally do but tend to be there for more one liners then normal. But it just seems that in order to drive the story for these movies, they made Fry into this total one dimensional character who seems to have only one goal in life now and isn't the same guy from the original series.
Overall, I would give this film a 6/10. For those fans who have been watching Futurama since the beginning, its still worth watching of course. Just like in Big Score, there are some great comedic and funny moments that make me miss the old TV series writing even more and shows how could this movies could of bin. I honestly have no idea what happened in these years the Futurama crew was off, but it really seems to have taken a toll. Hopefully they can get over this comedic slump they are having and remember how to write the kind of comedy gold that made the original series so great. We still have 2 more movies as well as a new half season that Comedy Central will be airing next year I believe. So finger's crossed that the rest of the Futurama movies and episodes pick back up and regain the same wit and geeky humor that the original series had.
-P. Knight
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