Futurama: Bender's Game

Ignore the negative reviews - this movie is excellent!!! If you love Futurama you will love this & the previous 2 movies. Can't wait till movie # 4 next year. Long live Futurama!

The creators of Futurama finally made a movie worthy of the Futurama Name. Thank you.

Futurama: Bender's GameFour years ago the future ended when the brillant Futurama was canceled, but thanks to fan of all planets the show was brought back for four tv movies, this is the third of the four, and where it was great seeing it there was a little something missing, I believe that this story should not have been spread over four parts and the show should have been a half hour shorter. But it is still futurama, and I wait for more to come back in time to us.

I was skeptical to get Bender's Game at first only because the first two movies were major disappointments to me. When I saw that I could get Bender's Game for about 20 bucks (15 dollars + 3.99 s&h), I decided to go for it.

I am very pleased with Bender's Game and this movie has restored my faith in the Futurama franchise. To describe Bender's Game without spoiling it for anyone, you could think of this as a Futurama's "Anthology of Interest" which featured some of the best of Futurama. Also, Bender's Game reminded me of the one Roswell episode. Overall the movie was very pleasing and this time around they hit the Futurama formula right on the head.

To all those fans who were disappointed with the first two movies, you can rest assure that this time around, Bender's Game is a must buy.

I'm a huge fan of Futurama and I happen to love Bender's Big Score and Beast With a Billion Backs. BBS, while perhaps not having that many of the laugh out loud moments, was concise and well put together and I loved it, it's actually my favorite of the movie releases so far. BwaBB was just plain funny with a few parts that made me want to pee myself. I think Bender's Game misses on both of those aspects. It has some funny moments, but really feels like a jumble of episode ideas that never made it previously and it doesn't flow well at all.

Aside from problems with cohesion, the funny moments are pretty few and far between. Fry had a very minimal part in this movie, and his little stupid one-liners are one of my favorite parts of the show/movies. I almost don't remember what he even did in this one. Most of the story revolves around Bender, which wouldn't normally be a bad thing, but in this case his part of the "story" just felt out of place and wasn't very funny at all. His foray into Dungeons and Dragons and the inevitable fantasy parallel universe side plot just weren't funny and took up too much of the movie's time. The plot about the dark matter shortage was kind of funny and it explained a big part of Futurama continuity (even tying in some of the past episodes, as this show commonly does so well) but the fantasy segment had absolutely nothing to do with it, and when that part was done, the original plot thread just continued almost as if nothing had changed. So basically it was like there was a 30 or so minute interruption in a movie that was only mildly funny to begin with. Also, another con about Bender's Game is the definite lack of Zapp Brannigan.

So it is with regret that I give this only three stars, and the extra star is just because it's Futurama. Now here's where I become a little hypocrytical: do I recommend getting this? Yes! Why? Because it's Futurama! Give them your money so they will continue making more! I'll let them have a dud as long as what they continue to bring us later will be up to my usual standard for the show. The preview for Into The Wild Green Yonder definitely looks like it'll be back on track.

So while this one might have some lost opportunity, it's still Futurama and this is still one of my favorite TV shows of all time.