Bender Bending Rodríguez's Back, Baby

Shut up friends!, I was cruising around IGN's TV reviews a few days ago. Boy, do they have my ass kicked in review quantity. Though seeing the giant scores they're giving some pretty mediocre Office episodes, I feel somewhat appeased that I'm a fair bit more elitist. *notch*

Anyways I stumbled upon a review of the new Futurama movie, Bender's Big Move. "Shit, they were making those weren't they!" I'd forgotten but started my download almost immediately.

I was hesitant. I loved and do still love Futurama, but that ex-girlfriend who was torn away by moronic TV execs is never the same when she walks back into your life. I mean the beret was cool in high school but when you're pushing 22 it looks a little silly. Also, Family Guy sure has sucked since it came back on the air. Each episode is like a bunch of chimps trying to approximate what Family Guy used to be. Maybe orangutans.

So I watched it. And it was sorta disappointing. I mean it wasn't terrible but it wasn't awesome either. Bender was the source of most of the laughs, which is abnormal as I tend to like the Professor, Zap, or Zoidberg more. Zap was pretty funny but was on screen for about 3 minutes. Some of the oddity has been lost which was always my (everyone's) favourite.

I was also worried that the "movie" would play like four episodes of Futurama pasted together. *cough cough Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story cough.* And surprisingly the plot held up pretty well. I don't want to give too much away but there's time travel. I love multi-layered time travel narratives, especially ones involving time-cops. The story was actually engaging and even had some moderate surprises. I've read some complaints about the Leela-Fry dynamic as tired but frankly has there ever been a television show without the will-they-or-won't-they get-together couple? And if that's been the driving force of the show why wouldn't it be the driving force of the movie? Yes, it's in there and it's sorta lame, but this means to me that the next three Futurama movies will likely be light on the issue. Get it over with first I guess? Whatever. I'm pumped Futurama's back.

In brief: if you like Futurama you were going to watch this anyways, if you don't, then this wont change your (obviously malfunctioning) mind.

But let's face it, comedy's a dead artform. Now tragedy, that's funny!