Since I did review the inaugural return of Futurama to its fan base with the DVD Bender's Big Score and its followup The Beast with a Billion Backs, it stands to reason that I should keep fellow fans abreast with a review of the latest installment, Futurama: Bender's Game. And yes, I will be reviewing Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder when it comes out in 2009.
Readers of my review of Beast will remember how disappointed I was with that installment...and judging from Futurama fan boards across the planet, many of you agreed. The freshness and fair return to form of Bender's Game seems to imply that creator Matt Groening(The Simpsons) and his chief co-producer David X. Cohen(Beavis and Butt-Head, The Simpsons) sat up and took notice. Fair credit must also go to director Dwayne Carey-Hill(Drawn Together), who helped elevate Bender's Big Score to its laugh-out-loud heights, and who manages to ably snatch the reins back from the inept Peter Avanzino, who almost managed to derail the franchise completely with Beast. Under Carey-Hill's assured and smooth direction, Bender's Game is a tight, well-oiled machine that chugs along at a crisp pace and keeps the sharp and often-times insightful one-liners coming.
Bender's Game isn't a perfect work by any means, but it does come close to matching the hilarity which ensued in Big Score. Part of the problem is that the storyline is based very largely on the Original Gangster of role playing games, 70's hit Dungeons and Dragons, created by Gary Gygax, who passed away earlier this year. The feature is in fact dedicated to Gygax, who once appeared on an episode of the series, as himself. The Nerd Side of the Force is in full effect within this episode, as Bender(voice of John DiMaggio) stumbles upon an innocuous set of the game being played by Dwight Conrad(voice of Phil LaMarr), Cubert Farnsworth(voice of Kath Soucie) and some friends. When Bender attempts to join in, it quickly becomes apparent that as a robot, his lack of an imagination(which is very arguable, considering the numerous schemes he's concocted over the years) is a hindrance of his ability to play the game.
As Bender goes off in search of such an ability, at the same time the Planet Express crew--Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Zoidberg(all voiced by Billy West), Hermes (Phil LaMarr), Leela(voice of Katey Sagal) and Amy(voice of Lauren Tom)--are dealing with the overpricing and shortage of dark matter fuel, which powers their spaceship. When Leela enters the spaceship in a demolition derby without Farnsworth's permission--and nearly destroys the ship in the process--he outfits her with a shock collar which delivers powerful volts to her whenever she becomes enraged...which is constantly. As the evil corporation and its owner Mom(voice of Tress MacNeille) begins hoarding all the dark matter in the universe, the dual stories of Bender's search for imagination and the P.E. crew's handling of Leela manage to intersect at a point where a fight ensues to control an invention of Farnsworth's which will negate all dark matter in the universe.
Aside from Carey-Hill's direction, credit must also go to the five writers, Eric Horsted(credited with Parts 1 and 2 of the story), Michael Rowe and Eric Kaplan(Part 3) and David X. Cohen and Patric M. Verrone(Part 4) who keep Bender's Game from being no more than a D&D love-in, with various in-jokes which a lot of people outside of that tight circle might not have gotten, and making the overall adventure more accessible. The second half of the film becomes not so much an extrapolation of the D&D part of the story, as it does a Lord of the Rings parody. It's at this point that I must give both apologies and props to Groening and crew: In my previous review of Beast with a Billion Backs, I predicted from previews on that disc that the LotR poke would be completely laughless. Far from it; this segment takes numerous, well-deserv-ed jabs at that venerable series, and has a couple of neat surprise gags for fans as well. There's also some much-anticipated girl-on-girl action between Leela and Amy, for fans who've fantasized about such a thing ever since the debut of the series, nearly ten years ago.
For the first time since the arrival of original direct-to-DVD Futurama adventures, the extras on the Bender's Game disc are finally something to be excited about(for the most part). There's a storyboard animatic of the first third of the film, which includes deleted dialogue for some scenes and which suitably demon-strates how the writers were able to punch up some lines. There's a funny "genetics lab" where you can mix-and-match characters to create new crossbreeds. A feature on how Dungeons and Dragons has influenced Futurama over the years is funny chiefly because of the(presumably pretend) bored appearance of Michael Rowe as extreme nerds Cohen and Kaplan dish on their favorite subject. D&D fans, pull out your carrots and have at it.
There's a mildly funny mini-feature on how to draw Futurama characters, which amazingly glosses over the fact that you must possess talent in order to draw them at all(??!) A segment on the creation of the 3D models for the cars used in the demolition derby is remarkably unrevealing and falls flat. A deleted scene titled "Cup or Nozzle" was obviously taken out because of its unintentional kid toucher/homoerotic content. Outtakes of the actors doing their work is mildly amusing, and by far the biggest laugh arrives in the form of Bender's "anti-piracy" warning. There is also a preview of the next and final installment, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder. One can only hope it continues the current upswing in the DVD series' storytelling. Finally, there is the commentary by Matt Groening and several of the actors. It's almost useless for any revealing info, but is very funny as the comedians tell amusing anecdotes and basically try to one-up each other.
You'll notice that at the top of this article, I don't have "Something satisfying to own" beneath the title. That's because Bender's Game, while amusing overall, will not be fully palatable for every Futurama fan. However, with the arrival of Bender's Game to DVD, Futurama has finally received a redemption of sorts. When you see the "something satisfying" for the final review, you'll know the series has ultimately come into its own once more.
Let's hope that in their next outing, the Planet Express crew goes out in grand form.
Official Archives of LanceReviews...
DVD Review: Futurama: Bender's Game
The penultimate chapter in the Futurama quadrology provides a redemption of sorts for the series...
Hold on: Bender's Game does its part to make up for the pitiful previous installment.
3d6, roll score of 10: Bender's immersion into the Dungeons & Dragon's fantasy play becomes the catalyst for the latest adventure of the Planet Express crew.
The fate of Nibbler and his people figures heavily into the P.E. crew's search for more dark matter fuel.
One robot to bind them: A surprisingly clever Lord of the Rings parody carries the second half of the film.
In the alternate reality, the central characters become bizarre hyper-imagined parodies of themselves.
