In theaters today is The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie for Theaters, the feature length film debut from the miscreant team of mutant fast food that have become stars on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about? Adult Swim is the late night lineup of cartoons that seem targeted at (but by no means limited to) the pop culture savvy college student crowd, and includes titles such as Futurama, Sealab 2021, and the live action 50’s TV sci-fi parody Saul of the Mole Men.
And of course, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, or ATHF, the most absurd, and arguably, the most sophisticated of the bunch. It revolves around three roommates – a giant, levitating, box of French fries, named Frylock, who is a scientific genius; a large, lazy, narcissistic, milkshake who goes by the name Mastershake; and Meatwad, a meatball under the age of legal consent that can morph into different shapes. They live in a ramshackle house in the New Jersey suburbs, next to their bald, hairy, overweight neighbor Carl, who, as it states on wikipedia and in the press notes, embodies every Jersey stereotype – he is tasteless, rude, sexist, has an aboveground pool, and loves classic rock.
It is hard to put the sense of humor at work in ATHF into a clear, concise definition. At times it defies words as much as it defies logic -- characters are frequently killed, only to be alive again in the next episode, there are leg humping robots, monsters, demons, aliens and assorted other creaturezoids. ATHF has it’s own sense of humor, and really the most important thing about it, is the fact that it works. Brilliantly. The show is funny as hell (and occasionally travels there, where MC Pee Pants, a giant diaper-clad spider, suffers degrading reincarnations at the hands of Satan). Or at least I think it's funny. And apparently I’m not alone, or it wouldn’t have lasted six seasons and have gotten a green light for a feature film, would it?
So how does this transport from the small screen to the big screen? Very well, certainly better than any of the Saturday Night Live skits have adapted from TV to feature film, and better than the South Park movie that came out a few years ago. What works as an 11 minute show works as a 90 minute movie, and the attention span of the plot is so serpentine, it really feels like watching a season’s worth of episodes in one sitting.
The film’s plot revolves around the Insane-O-Flex, a powerful and sophisticated piece of exercise equipment that has something to do with the destruction of the universe. Or something. It’s not really clear, but neither is why the word ‘Colon’ is in the title, or why the show is even called ‘Aqua Teen,’ because none of the main characters are teenagers, or does the show deal with water (since the main characters on the show are food, you could make an argument for ‘Hunger,’ and since Frylock can fire laser blasts from his eyes, Meatwad can morph into shapes, and Shake is usually packing some kind of firearm, ‘Force’ is kind of appropriate too). Anyway, it’s up to Frylock, Mastershake, and Meatwad to stop the Insane-O-Flex from wrecking havoc on New Jersey. All the show’s reoccurring players – the Moonites (the 8-bit animated aliens the Boston PD recently mistook for bombs), the Plutonians, the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past, Dr. Weird – are here, as are several cameos (Bruce Campbell makes an appearance as the missing fourth member of ATHF), there are film references (everything from X-Men to Crimson Tide to Videodrome), and enough CGI blood to rival 300.
With its unique, warped, irreverent sense of humor, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie for Theaters is a mayhem filled animated theater of the absurd that should please hardcore ATHF fans and newcomers alike.
First Look Pictures releases Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters wide in theatres today.
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