Futurama: Bender's Game

Of the three Futurama "movies" currently available, this one is by far the superior product. Biting sarcasm (thanks, Bender), an actual plot line, and a pop-culture skewering satire of "Lord of the Rings" make this Futurama at its best. Hermes as a hermaphroditic centaur? Why not? Keep 'em coming lads, and remember that Dungeons and Dragons is Bad for You!

Okay, this was not what I expected.

Everything was just fine in the beginning. It had funny jokes such as the Robot Nut House, and the Demelition Derby. It was all good...until they got into the fantasy part of the movie.

That part got weird and gross and they just repeated the same things. When they explained how the Prof. created Dark matter, or Ignor's "Big shocking" (not really) secret, they would explain it in the 1st act, then when they got into the fantasy world, they would explain it again.

I just felt like it was just dragging on. What happened to the episodes of Futurama that are humorous, get to the point, and have a bit of emotion.

Do not buy this. It's worth a rent if you're real curious, but not a buy.

With the exception of the first movie Bender's Big Score, the Futurama movie formula has shown (sadly) that it just doesn't work. Both Bender's Game and the even worse Beast with a Billion Backs feel like exercises in padding out an episode to make it reach that magic 90 minute running time. When do we get to the plot??!! - I kept asking myself as I watched these last two installments, as pointless diversion built upon pointless diversion. The simple and sad fact is that these movies feel like a Futurama episode with all the deleted scenes left in. And there are other writing problems too - where is the character development, or humor that comes from the characters? Bender's Game has an interesting message about fuel shortages, but that just gets buried in all the padding - the entire dungeons and dragons fantasy bit is a complete detour from the plot. And unlike the first film, which delved into Leela and Fry's relationship, Bender's Game gives us zilch, while the previous movie just undermines the first one by having Fry forget all about his love for Leela. In Bender's Game, even Bender goes off on some pointless detour in search of his imagination - somewhat ironic considering the quality of writing here. Futurama fans, Fox simply isn't going to commission more of this, or a feature-film - not after seeing the last two films. The only way to save Futurama is to campaign for a fresh season of episodes - that is where Futurama belongs and that is where it shines. If they wanted to stick to this formula, they could release DVD sets of four episodes at a time. These movies are making me turn against a show I have loved for so long, and that is sad. Episodes, not movies!!!!

I am a huge Futurama fan so this was a must have. I only watched this one once so far and it wasn't my favorite of the three. There was no hint at a possible end to Fry's love for Leela. The whole plot was very far fetched. There were some good parts and it made funny references to another hit movie, but I would say that this is by far not the funniest of three movies. I also didn't notice many scientific or mathmatical references for us nerds.

I've been a Futurama fan since Day 1, and I eagerly anticipate the release of any new material. This one, though, doesn't live up to the franchise. The plot is disjointed and makes no sense. There's a noble tradition of that in Futurama, though, so that's not really a strong criticism of the movie. The real problem is that it's just not funny. It's not even particularly interesting. If you condensed the best parts of this movie into a single 22 minute episode, it would still be one of the worst Futurama episodes made. Any real fan is going to buy it anyway, no doubt, but I really don't think they'll be watching it as often as they watch the others.