Review of Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008) by Matthew Y — 23 Jun 2008

I'm a huge Futurama fan. I've seen every episode in the series at least ten times and the first movie three times. The humor never gets old and still makes me laugh. As soon as I was able to obtain a copy of "The Beast With a Billion Backs," which was today, I was not hesitant to start watching it.

The plot of this movie, for those who don't know, is that shortly after the first movie, a tear in the universe is worrying everyone within it whether the end of the universe lies ahead. Some speculate that the tear might be a portal to another universe. With this in mind, Hubert Farnsworth sets out the entire Planet Express team to explore and figure out what lies at the tear. What happens next? Well, you'll just have to watch to find out.

I want to point this out, that the first movie was a lot more climatic than this one. The first one could have really been a theatrical movie. This movie seems to be an elongated episode that could have been found as a TV movie special. That doesn't mean it's anything bad, the movie is still a great one.

Another thing I noticed was that there was no singing or song overlays in the movie. The first one had it, which gave it the feel as though it was a movie worthy of being on the big screen. This one only had the typical music you would find in any Futurama episode, except for some new bits here and there. As to why they left out the musical scenes, I'm not sure except for that some fans might not have liked that approach. I personally liked them, but they did not keep me longing for it in this movie.

There are extras to the DVD, which are really nice for any Futurama fan to take a look at. Deleted scenes are nothing special and all-together last around three minutes. The best part for me was "The Lost Adventure," which was the story that was put in the Futurama video game released for the Xbox and PS2. Although the game wasn't received well by critics, the story was spot on to the humor and fun of any Futurama episode. The story is presented in the same way the video game presented it, through cut scenes created by the game engine and voicing by the original actors. I recommend watching it if you own this movie.

Commentary for the movie is great enough to watch through the entire movie with it on. It has most of the voice actors that, obviously, recollect on their experiences with making the movie. After watching the movie first, I'd watch the movie again with the commentary on.

There is also a preview to the next Futurama movie, Bender's Game, which is a play off of the title of the book, "Ender's Game." It has a Dungeons and Dragons theme and looks to be another great Futurama movie.

Overall, if you love Futurama, you'll love this movie. Although it does not have much of the same feel as the first movie, it still is new content to Futurama. The story is everything you would expect from Futurama and the humor is spot on. The extras are a nice addition; I'd recommend listening to the commentary and watching "The Lost Adventure.".