FUTURAMA - BENDER'S BIG SCORE
Unlike THE SIMPSONS MOVIE this doesn't feel like a drawn-out episode, it stays fresh throughout and has enough depth and even enough of a plot to keep you glued to the screen. In U.K. stores from Monday!
Dwayne Carey-Hill Written by: Ken Keeler & David X. Cohen Starring: Billy West, John Di Maggio, Katey Sagal, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNeille, David Herman, Al Gore, Mark Hamill, Sarah Silverman
DVD is out NOW in the U.S. from retailers such as Amazon for $19.99
DVD will be released on Region 2 from Monday 7th April 2008 from retailers such as Play.com for £9.99
Review by Michael Edwardsrating: 4
Hands up who missed Futurama... Come on... I know it's not just me... Well I don't care if it is. I loved Futurama, and when The Simpsons got their own movie I thought it was pretty unfair that their underrated cult cousin hadn't got into the action. It was therefore an immense pleasure to me when I discovered that'd they'd been re-commissioned from the four years in limbo to produce four new straight-to-DVD movies, the first of which, Bender's Big Score, I have now had the pleasure of watching and let me tell you that it was truly a GREAT pleasure, more pleasurable than that soft soft feeling of slipping into your valeur spacesuit after a cold night aboard the Nimbus, and much more pleasurable than eating a bucket of popplers washed down with a cool can of Slurm. But enough with the obscure references - on with the review! For those of you who haven't seen Futurama, you can bite my shiny metal ass. Sorry, I didn't mean that. I actually did my best to see the world through your malnourished retinas and watched the movie twice to sift through the in-jokes. Ok, I just watched it twice because I wanted to, but nonetheless I can now confidently say that even if you've never set eyes on the show it's is an accessible and funny movie that doesn't bog you down with layered gags based on previous episodes. That's not to say that there aren't plenty of references to, appearances from and explanations of earlier characters and events but they are very much woven into the tale they've now turned their hand to. I was pleased to see the return of robot santa, Fry's dog Seymour and a host of other subsidiaries, but they didn't dominate the story. Which meant geeks like me could giggle every time another cameo flitted by, and those of you with lives can just enjoy the gags. The premise of the tale is as scrumptiously absurd as you could expect from the wizards of weirdness. After the predictable jab at the network executives, or should I saw the executives at the Box network who cancelled the shipping license of Planet Express, the crew is sent off with a package for the nudist beach planet, and the twists and turns of the tale are as off-the-wall and crazy as you could hope for from the writers of Futurama. Unlike The Simpsons Movie this doesn't feel like a drawn-out episode, it stays fresh throughout and has enough depth and even enough of a plot to keep you glued to the screen. The DVD extras do their job too, with plenty of little tidbits from the production, as well as commentaries and a mouth-watering sneak preview of the next installment of the series. So if you're a massive Futurama fan, this won't disappoint, if you haven't seen Futurama - watch this!rating: 4