Review of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (2007) by Armonda. — 07 Sep 2007

Here's a rule that I always abide by: two people who agree with one another about films nearly all of the time are quite likely to disagree over comedies quite often and with great vigor. Far be it from me, then, to try to explain WHY I find ATHF to be funny.

Moreover, in the case of this particular film, the single score that we're asked to issue is in itself misleading, since it represents an average of TWO scores--perhaps a 9 and a 3--as if an individual critic cannot agree with himself.

The reader can picture me watching this cinematic fruit salad and reacting with hoots, howls, grimaces, and indifference. I can say with some certainty that this critique would be less good-natured had I gone to the trouble and expense of seeing the movie in a theater rather than watching it in the more forgiving and receptive state of the couch-potato, Nothing ventured, nothing resented.

Perhaps the most important quality in the film is its "modesty", which seems like an odd perception given the frequent references to infantile sexual preoccupations. The modesty is in the film's satirical targets.

Unlike South Park, for instance, the "auteurs" stick to making fun of the conventions of popular culture, which is a field in which the young cartoonists are genuine experts. While seemingly "lawless" and "subversive", this superficially "outrageous" collage has its roots in the soil of the old Dick Van Dyke show, Sid Caesar's Show of Shows, and even the equally hit and miss absurdist sketches of Ernie Kovaks and Monty Python.

That puts it in some pretty fine company.