Movie Review

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters (R)

Kit Bowen

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Hollywood.com Says
While not for the faint of heart, Aqua Teen Hunger Force is perfectly suited for the seriously twisted followers--and new recruits--of the Cartoon Network show.

Story
Umm, hard to pin this one down. While not dealing with a) water, b) teenagers or c) being hungry, this bizarre and raunchy cinematic experience has something to do with the mysterious origins of Aqua Teen Hunger Force members: Meatwad (literally, a meatball), Frylock (a floating box of French fries with a diabolical face) and Master Shake (a horny milk shake). When an immortal piece of exercise equipment threatens the balance of galactic peace, these three become unlikely heroes, teaming up with the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past and the Plutonians to strive for ultimate control of the sinister deadly device. There’s also the fat slob New Jersey neighbor, Carl, who tries unsuccessfully to keep the Aqua Teens away from his house and his pool; the mad scientist Dr. Weird and his lab assistant Steve; and two villainous pairs of dastardly villains--Ignignokt and Err of the dreaded Mooninite Army. Seriously, we aren’t making any of this up.

Acting
Produced by Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis, ATHF is based on their successful Adult Swim series, in which they also provide the vocals: Willis voices Carl, Meatwad and Ignignokt, while Maiellaro takes on Err, Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past. There’s also Dana Snyder as Master Shake, Carey Means as Frylock and Andy Merrill and Mike Schatz as The Plutonians. Apparently, most of the dialogue is improvised. Ah, to be a fly on the wall in THAT recording studio. You can just imagine those guys, sitting around with fast food and candy wrappers everywhere and an old Galaga video game in the corner, coming up with the most off-the-wall stuff they can think of. Of course, some of it may only be funny to them, but it’s their ballgame. They can do what they want.

Direction
Maiellaro and Willis, who also worked on Cartoon Network’s hilariously subversive Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, are some sincerely messed-up dudes. The first ATHF episode, “Baffler Meal” (a parody of McDonald’s Happy Meal), appeared on the Space Ghost show and featured a prototypical version of ATHF that resembled the future characters but differed in appearance, personality and voice. It sort of grew exponentially since then, and now the show is going into its fifth season. In ATHF Colon Movie Film for Theaters, the vulgar humor is certainly South Park-inspired and the animation, at best, rudimentary. The best are Ignignokt and Err, who look like old arcade video-game characters. As they threaten the world with impending destruction, they shoot their ray guns, which move at the speed of a snail: beep [pause] beep [pause] beep [pause]...and so it goes. Little hysterical touches like that pop up all over the place. The overall movie, however, will probably only speak to those twisted minds out there who watch the show, snagging a few new converts (myself included) along the way. Maybe that’ll be enough.

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