Futurama: Bender's Game

Despite raising costs of dark matter, Leela gets involved in a spaceship demolition derby, prompting the Professor to take action to help control her anger issues. Investigation into the reasons behind the rising costs of fuel (and the rising profits of Mom) leads to a terrible discovery far from Earth. Meanwhile, Bender's initial inability to take part in the kids' game of Dungeons & Dragons (due to his lack of programmed imagination), takes off big time – seeing him falling into a fantasy world of knights and witchcraft in his head and a mental institution in real life. The previous two Futurama movies were not that great, with overly busy plotting getting in the way of what the show was actually meant to be – funny and smart. Reading my plot summary here (and seeing the film synopsis in full) might suggest that Bender's Game is more of the same as we have different things going on with the characters all flowing together into a rather mad story. Much to my delight though this is not the case – and it is not because the plot isn't a bit messy, because it is. No, what makes it work here is that it is consistently funny and silly in a way that actually had me laughing. We do still have the plot working hard to make things move forward at times but even when this is happening, the film is still funny. It does this in the way the show always used to, by having lots of little side gags and lots of smart references that are imaginative and funny. The story is still very busy but, because of the amount of laughs in it, I never felt bogged down in the story or that I was getting story at the expense of laughter. It is hard to describe the differences between this and the other films in terms beyond this, but to me Bender's Game is the first film that felt like it was part of the series. It is not perfect though. The fantasy game section of the film is a little too trippy and long for its own good because it just suddenly "happens" in a way that feels like a different film and it is a while before the connection to the main plot is clear. Again though, what saves it is that you're laughing regularly during this. Even with the laughing though, 90 minutes still seems like a bit of an ask and it does feel longer than it is, reminding the viewer that Futurama always was about 20 minutes long and making the same thing work in a product about five times longer is not easy and doesn't totally work. Despite these minor qualms, Bender's Game is the Futurama film I have been waiting for and it is the first one of the three that has captured what I loved about the actual series. It is funny in the way the series used to be funny and, although the plotting is not its strongest point, the laughs cover up a surprising amount of the problems.

I am a long time, big fan of Futurama, the series. The movies so far have disappointed me. Bender's Game however is in a league of its own. It is quite simply the worst Futurama ever made. How did this get passed quality control? Why did Groenig not stop this release. It is so bad, it is hard to describe it. The plot is extremely chaotic, and simply not funny. When I was browsing the HMV isles, I stumbled upon this DVD. At first I was puzzled... a Futurama movie I did not know yet? The release date was 2008, so it was a new one. Then me and my girlfriend got excited... a new Futurama! Oh boy... it was a big let down. She even stopped viewing it half way though. I managed to finish the movie the next morning. What on earth were they thinking? In the future, I will think twice before buying. Oh, and I think the publisher knows it is bad as well... the movie retailed for 9.99 Canadian dollar, less than normal. I think they need to dump unsellable produce.

Argh, this movie is so frustratingly bad! There are a number of flaws which will be detailed below. Basically, the Planet Express crew get sucked into some alternate reality after storming Mom's lair to save Nibbler and a bunch of other Nibblonians...but it takes ages to get to the alternate reality, by the time they do, the movie is halfway over. And then, the "plot" is mostly a whole bunch of pop culture references crammed down the viewer's throat! Enough already, you're referencing popular stuff, we get it, don't overdo it! And the characterization really suffers in this movie too. They take one aspect of a character's personality, and multiply it by ten, and suddenly, you've got a Leela who want's to kill everything and an Amy who wants to sleep with everyone, even the hideous monsters. Jeez, Leela hits people a lot in the show, but nowhere near as much as she does here, and Amy was never so...loose as she is here, she makes out with an Orc, a Mork (don't ask) and even Leela! That last one came right out of left field and was so ridiculously pointless, it didn't even make sense! So yeah, don't watch this movie, you'll be losing more than half of your brain cells, go watch the first two movies or the show instead, but not this or the next movie, which is almost as bad.

This movie series started off just "OK" with "Bender's Big Score", then I felt a little hope seeing "Beast With a Billion Backs".. Sadly however, "Bender's Game" and "Into The Wild Green Yonder" are both in-cohesive, boring, and generally consist of the kind of lazy writing you wouldn't expect from a show like Futurama. One of the biggest problems is certainly trying to produce a full-length movie out of a 20-minute cartoon. It became very clear to me that the writers lost interest and/or didn't have enough quality content to make these films, and the movies suffered big time. As some other people mentioned, there was way too much crude and sexual humor that just didn't fit the series. The references to Lord of the Rings and Star Wars weren't at all funny or entertaining.. Just more lazy writing. Ultimately, this film was barely worth the time it took to watch it. I was actually falling asleep during this movie and "Into The Wild Green Yonder". Drawn out drivel..

I really enjoyed the third Futurama outing, Bender's Game. The plot was great and the gags were nonstop. The Yellow Submarine opening was superb. Zoidberg was extremely funny as always. All the pop-culture references were hilarious and so were some of the scenes with Leela's shock collar. The acting, animation, and music were fantastic, as always. My one complaint: We don't really get into the whole fantasy element you see on the poster until halfway through the film, which is why my score got knocked back down to a nine. But other than that, this was a great film, but Beast with a Billion Backs is still my favorite so far. Hopefully the fourth and final film will be better than the other three combined.

I totally disagree with the seemingly dominating opinion that this movie was a good one. Okay, the first third (!) is decent: the usual jokes and all that about D&D seems interesting even though punctuated with obscene/nauseating bits. But after that it's going downhill. Don't expect it to get any better after you successfully endured fecal gags, plain idiocy and obvious attempts to satisfy male viewers' wishes - only to get shocked by transsexual and elder-sexual appearances. Having seen the whole series and the previous two movies I daresay: "Worst Episode Ever"

The third and thus far worst of the Futurama feature films see's our heroes stuck in a world of dungeons and dragons and for that reason I expected great things. It most certainly did not deliver! Being the big ol' nerd that I am I thought that could be the thing that takes the distinctly average Futurama and makes it enjoyable for me but instead it seems to have gone the other way. The jokes are just not on point at all, they're worse than ever. I was shocked at a couple of them, I know that Futurama does adult jokes all the time but they're always done in such a way that a child wouldn't understand. A couple here were really obvious and blatant, a kid would get that! As usual it's not bad, it's just not great either. The more of these movies I watch the less I'm looking forward to my Futurama binge. If a d&d setting can't make it enjoyable than what chance does it stand? The Good: A few decent jokes Great LOTR parodies The Bad: Most jokes miss the mark Things I Learnt From This Movie: I don't think I'll ever get the appeal of this seriously overrated tosh