Review of Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder (2009) by Patrick S — 24 Feb 2010

It's over, I have finally caught up on everything Futurama. Into the Wild Green Yonder is the fourth and final Straight-to-DVD Futurama movie that supposes to connect the old series to the new which is supposedly coming in June of 2010 on Fox or Comedy Central like I said on Bender's Big Score, I have no idea which. So after the decent but weak Bender's Big Score, the good Beast with a Billion Backs and the horrible Bender's Game we seem to have gone full circle to be yet another decent but weak entry. So let's get on with Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder already, why not.

The Wong family...mostly Leo, Amy's dad, is out to build the biggest miniature golf course the universe has ever seen! But first he has to destroy 12% of The Milky Way to make way and he bribes Professor Farnsworth to do an environmental survey saying that there's no life despite there being life on an asteroid by a violet star Leo intends to implode. This angers Leela into joining a Femininenvironment group and then she turns them into a Terrorist Feminenvironment group. Fry on the other hand gets the power to read minds through some WACKY HIJINKS and finds out that he's the savior of the universe yet again as long Leo doesn't implode that star. So Fry works on the inside as his security guard.

Well, this has the exact same problem that did in Bender's Big Score and that it was too disjointed and I couldn't get into it. At first it's about a poker tournament with Bender having an affair with Don Bot's wife and then it's about the quest to save the universe. It flows better than Big Score but not as well as Beast and not even as well as Bender's Game which was one of the few things that did right! I know the game and I know these things are necessary but I don't want to see the seams separating the stories.

Now there is always the Rule of Funny to make me not care about how disjointed the movie is but that rule somewhat fails. It is somewhat funny and there are laughs to be had, just not enough of them to make me like this. However, I will admit that unlike Bender's Game, all of the jokes are accessible to everyone instead of only for those who play Dungeons and Dragons...I don't care what flak I got for it, I will never be sorry for insulting D & D but I digress. And even on a heartwarming level this movie doesn't cut it either since it's only there for two short scenes but they are very sweet.

So as the final movie, this is disappointing. It's funny but not funny enough. At times it is sweet, but it isn't sweet enough. At times it's epic, but it isn't epic enough. It could've been better but then again it could've Bender's Game.