Movie Review: ATHF film is great, and if you don't like it, don't watch it

By: Stephen Greenwell

Posted: 4/17/07

04/17/07 - Everyone's favorite group of a milk shake, a box of French fries and a rolling ball of meat have finally hit the cinemas with a profanity-laced journey that is equal parts tedium and hilarity.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters does not drift much from the premise of the television show, but it does prove that surreal humor can be stretched for 86 minutes. There are bumps along the way, but the overall experience is worth $10 at the Providence Place Cinema 16, the only place in the state showing the film.

For those unfamiliar with ATHF, I'll explain the basic premise, although it is unlikely you'll enjoy the movie if you haven't seen any of the show's oddball humor.

The show and the movie both focus on a talking group of food: Master Shake, an arrogant milk shake with questionable intellect; Meatwad, a rolling ball of meat with the mentality of a child; and Frylock, a genius-level box of French fries that can also shoot laser beams from its eyes. Of the three, Frylock is the only one who is remotely functional in society, excluding his BSDM fetish.

The trio rents its house from Carl, a chronic masturbator with no discernable source of income and seemingly no other outfit except for a pair of ratty sweatpants. Supporting characters include the Mooninites, which are pixilated villains from the Moon, and the Plutonians, a pair of green and orange colored aliens from Pluto that are mentally retarded.

As you can imagine, most episodes make no sense, and the movie is no exception. Roughly, the Aqua Teens are trying to stop a dangerous piece of exercise equipment, the Insane-O-Flex, from taking over the world. Side plots include a lost Aqua Teen, a creation story involving a flight into a brick wall, an acoustic CD project entitled Nude Love and Master Shake explaining sex with a chalkboard diagram.

The best part of the movie starts immediately, as the heavy metal band Mastodon satirizes the normal song and dance routine about not talking, done by animated boxes of popcorn and candy. It is hard not to enjoy lyrics like "Don't like it? / Walk out / We still have all your ****ing money."

This sets the tone perfectly, and shifts into the first act, as the Aqua Teens escape from Egypt and then shoot off in a log cabin rocket made by a time-traveling Abraham Lincoln. This sets up a slavery joke, which is inappropriately funny, and then the movie just abandons any pretense of a coherent plot with further twists.

Some of these twists are funny. Some are not, and there were noticeably less laughs as the movie progressed. Things rebounded in the last 20 minutes, but due to the absurdist, ri-cock-ulous nature of the show, not everything can hit for everyone. In particular, I wouldn't have minded a little more of the Mooninites and Plutonians, who are discarded for major parts of the film.

There are some noticeable guest voices for the new characters. Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live) voices Lincoln, Chris Kattan (SNL again) plays Water Melon, Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness, the recent Old Spice commercial with the super long boat) plays the fourth Aqua Teen and even Tina Fey provides a very special voice at the end of the film.

In addition to these characters, some series regular also return. The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future, mc chris, Dr. Weird, his assistant Steve and Space Ghost all make appearances. The main theme song has also been revamped, with new lyrics by Schoolly D and new animation.

It is somewhat exasperating to try to review this movie, by the way. For almost everyone, you either "get" ATHF, or you don't. If you like shows like Family Guy, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and The Brak Show, or the more absurdist moments of the Airplane! films, then you'll enjoy this.

That's a bit of a cop-out answer, but professional reviewers aren't doing any better with the ATHF issue. Conventional papers like The New York Times and The Boston Globe have both unfairly panned it, since it is radically different from anything else in theaters, and almost no "conventional" movie-goer would want to see it. By the way, Wild Hogs is now up to $146 million, you swine.

I prefer to take the Roger Ebert stance, as outlined in his review of Shaolin Soccer:

"It takes more nerve to praise pop entertainment; it's easy and safe to deliver pious praise of turgid deep thinking ... When you ask a friend if Hellboy is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to Mystic River, you're asking if it's any good compared to The Punisher. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if Superman is four, then Hellboy is three and The Punisher is two.

So, I say F-it! Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters is, relative to its absurdist humor competition (a.k.a. nothing), clearly the best movie out there.

Like a movie by Will Ferrell, ATHF had a certain demographic that it caters to. If you're in college, or really into weed, you will probably love Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters. If you hate cartoons, don't understand surrealist humor and need constant guidance as to what the movie is about, then follow the advice of Mastodon in the opening song:

"Do not explain the plot / If you don't understand, then you should not be here / Your money is our money / And we will spend it on drugs."