This movie has a lot of fans, as expected. But there's a lot of people comparing it to the South Park Movie and I feel it's a fair comparison. Does it match up to Bigger, Longer and Uncut? No. For the simple reason that the South Park movie had a plot, a story and a point to make. It was a movie that spoke loudly against censorship and promoted free speech. The Family Guy movie just uses the 'uncut' slogan as a way of dragging in more vulgar humor.
Originally conceived as a movie and then broken up into 3 individual episodes for airing on TV, the movie comes in 3 very noticeable parts. As separate episodes there's no real story at all and nothing to make you catch it again the next week because loads of little sub-plots that begin are never finished. There is a slight bias of gearing most of these stories in Stewie's direction but not so much that the movie should be named after him. Every half hour the it goes in a new direction and we never feel like we're getting anywhere with other than into another thing to make fun of. I can't really give a breakdown of the movie or the main characters involved as it just goes everywhere and all over the place. So much more could have become of a feature length Family Guy but Seth McFarlane and Co. do nothing with it and seize no opportunity other than swearing and racier humor.
However it is very funny and there are some classic moments that will have you in suffocating fits of laughter, such as the wacky, waving, inflatable, arm-flailing tube man commercial, the Thundercats scene, Britney Spears getting burned alive, the scene that dumps on the shoddy morals and ethics of Blockbuster Video, the restaurant with Tom Tucker's private booth and...well pretty much everything is spot on. But this scatter-shot approach to comedy has all the sophistication of sticking a shotgun into a crowd and pulling the trigger. Sure you're going to hit everyone but it's not very clever.
But Family Guy was never about subtlety or holding back on the mayhem. If anything it's the modern day equivalent of the Looney Tunes. Anyone who hoped for something big or king-sized from this 88-minute movie will be sorely disappointed at the low-aiming nature of it. It succeeds at exactly what it wants to do; it makes us laugh hysterically. It could/should have been more. It all depends on what you expect from an animated TV show turned movie.
It's still a billion times better than Pokemon: The Movie, though that's hardly a huge compliment.
Originally conceived as a movie and then broken up into 3 individual episodes for airing on TV, the movie comes in 3 very noticeable parts. As separate episodes there's no real story at all and nothing to make you catch it again the next week because loads of little sub-plots that begin are never finished. There is a slight bias of gearing most of these stories in Stewie's direction but not so much that the movie should be named after him. Every half hour the it goes in a new direction and we never feel like we're getting anywhere with other than into another thing to make fun of. I can't really give a breakdown of the movie or the main characters involved as it just goes everywhere and all over the place. So much more could have become of a feature length Family Guy but Seth McFarlane and Co. do nothing with it and seize no opportunity other than swearing and racier humor.
However it is very funny and there are some classic moments that will have you in suffocating fits of laughter, such as the wacky, waving, inflatable, arm-flailing tube man commercial, the Thundercats scene, Britney Spears getting burned alive, the scene that dumps on the shoddy morals and ethics of Blockbuster Video, the restaurant with Tom Tucker's private booth and...well pretty much everything is spot on. But this scatter-shot approach to comedy has all the sophistication of sticking a shotgun into a crowd and pulling the trigger. Sure you're going to hit everyone but it's not very clever.
But Family Guy was never about subtlety or holding back on the mayhem. If anything it's the modern day equivalent of the Looney Tunes. Anyone who hoped for something big or king-sized from this 88-minute movie will be sorely disappointed at the low-aiming nature of it. It succeeds at exactly what it wants to do; it makes us laugh hysterically. It could/should have been more. It all depends on what you expect from an animated TV show turned movie.
It's still a billion times better than Pokemon: The Movie, though that's hardly a huge compliment.