Movie Night #102: Futurama 3 – Bender’s Game

Movie Night #102:  Futurama 3: Bender’s Game (2008)
Director:  Dwayne Carey Hill
Plot:  The Planet Express Crew are back in what my friend Justin calls “a return to the episode-like feel of the original series,” but what I call, “The weakest flick so far,” in the Futurama movie franchise.

Bender has no imagination, so in an effort to gain some, he starts playing Dungeons and Dragons with the kids of Planet Express.  At the same time, there seems to be a problem with the Dark Matter prices, as Mom Corp has the only supply – mining it from a planet.  However, the crew knows better – that Dark Matter comes from the Nibblonians – and that Mom has a crap-farm on that planet.  They go to render all Dark Matter worthless with anti-Dark Matter, and are sucked into an imaginary world created by Bender playing too much D&D. 

While it’s still a fun flick, it does feel like they’re going to chop it up and turn it into episodes – which is the plan, according to the series creators.  However, as a movie it’s a weak extension of the series.  The plot jumps around a lot, there are a lot of elements introduced earlier in the flick that have no bearing on later events (ie: let’s turn the demolition derby into an episode, and ignore it for the rest of the story – which again, works for an episode but not for a movie).  But there are certainly laughs and the flick’s very entertaining.  Certainly worth the watching. 

Sorry the updates for Movie Night have been running behind, but job hunting and working on comic-related projects has been sucking up a good deal of my time.  I’m well on my way to achieving my goal of being published, as I’ve been chatting with the EIC of Ronin Studios about opportunities, and I have had a pitch accepted by them for a short story in their Eisner Awad Winning HOPE anthology.  The anthology will benefit the Hero Initiative, which is a cause worth supporting. 

More details to follow in later blog posts.