Movie #41: Futurama - Bender's Game

Bender's Game, the third Futurama movie (and second to be reviewed here---see Movie #11), suffers from similar problems as the first two---mainly, it just doesn't work well as a feature-length film. With a runtime of 88 minutes, it's the equivalent of watching four episodes consecutively, but with only enough good jokes to cover one of them. I'm not sure why Futurama keeps having this issue with their made-for-DVD movies, but after three of these mediocre efforts I'm about ready to throw in the towel and content myself with its far superior half-hour reruns.

Bender's Game attempts to mine humor from the world of Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy realms, a subject rife for comic skewering. While there are some funny moments to be sure, the plot is all over the place and feels like it was written to get the characters from point A to point B to point C in such a way that simply occupies time. I can almost imagine the writers...

Writer #1: What do we have them do now?

Writer #2: How's about they get sucked into a bizzaro D&D universe? That'll kill about 20 pages.

Writer #1: Done.

The fourth Futurama movie gets released on Tuesday. I won't be rushing out to watch it this time.

Grade: 4/10