Me and the little lady just viewed the straight to DVD Futurama movie Bender's Big Score, which was superbly better than many of the other straight to DVD movies I rent on frequent occasion. And this one doesn't come in a black bag, wrapped up in shame, packaged with regret. But it was a good old, time traveling, universe alternating, niblonian shattering movie that was fun for the whole family. I won't spoil any elements of the plot here, but Futurama definitely proves itself to be one the most well written, beautifully animated, and hilarious cartoon that has ever been on tv. The story is layered, funny and stays completely in tune with the original show, complete with cameos by nearly every character who was ever in the show, including my personal favorite Barbados Slim.



I'll even go so far to say that this movie was a lot better than the Simpson's Movie; It looked better, was much more fun, and didn't seem as forced. Don't get me wrong, I liked the Simpson's movie, but watching Bender's Big Score just made me feel a little more complete afterwards.

My favorite part of the entire film has to be the way they explain why and, more importantly, who canceled the show. There is obviously no love lost between the show and the Fox executives, which is also made painfully obvious in the audio commentary and in the cast-comic-book-reading special featurette. While not as many special features as I had hoped, I'm looking forward to the next 3 installments that are due out in the next few months.



ALSO: FULL LENGTH EPISODE OF THE HYPNOTOAD.