Starring Katey Sagal, Lauren Tom, Billy West, Phil LaMarr, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, John DiMaggio, David Herman
Written By: Ken Keeler
Directed By: Dwayne Carey-Hill
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Buy on Amazon.com link

Good News Everyone, Futurama is back! Futurama is now in the rare league with Family Guy and Firefly. They are in a rare league because they were all canceled or never got renewed. All the shows have been brought back from the dead in one way or another. Futurama was canceled and fans were immediately upset. Once the shows hit the DVD shelves and syndication, the fans started to pour in and the ratings picked up for the Cartoon Network. Once that happened, there was talks of bringing back Futurama to TV. That’s still going to happen but now its in straight-to-DVD form. There will be 4 (I think 4) straight to DVD movies that will be cut up into episodes and they will air on Comedy Central sometime in the future.

The first feature length movie is called Bender’s Big Score. It’s brand new content and the last time we got that was in 2003. The movie is about Planet Express getting suckered by a bunch of ugly nudist alien Internet scammers. The crew have to deliver a package to some nudist colony, and while they are there, they stupidly; give out their information to these people. The next thing they know, the nudist alien Internet scammers are at their door and say they now own Planet Express. Threatening to fire them all, they tell the crew they have to do their bidding or they will destroy the world. The aliens find a way to go back in time, and steal all the most valuable possessions the earth has ever known. They get the help from Bender, who was programmed to do so with the Alien’s virus program. Meanwhile, Leela finds love and Fry discovers his destiny and something strange on his butt. Everyone you love is back on the show, including Al “The Global Warming is Evil” Gore!

I thought the new Futurama movie was good, but it wasn’t laugh out loud funny like their earlier TV episodes were. I stopped watching Futurama towards the very end of the series because I just didn’t think the show was as good as it used to be. I think the new movie had a lot of funny moments; but I don’t know, just wasn’t overly hilarious to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it’s back though. I liked how we got to see all the characters from the series come back or make some cameos. My favorite characters are Zapp and Kif. I always laugh at how dumb Zapp is and Kif is always next to him, sulking. I feel bad for Kif. You don’t see them until later on in the movie when Earth declares war on the aliens. I really like that scene because it was put together really well, and it was fun to watch. I thought Fry going back in time and caring for this whale was really dumb. I know why they put that stuff in there because it meant something, but it really dragged down the movie. Other than that, I didn’t really have any other problems with the movie. I liked Hermes storyline of him having an “incident” and trying to win back his wife. I actually wished there was more of Zapp, the Professor and less of the Fry/Leela stuff. Just all that lovey dovey crap just drags down the funniness of the show. It’s probably one of the reasons why I stopped watching Futurama towards the end of its run.

The best thing in the special features is a live reading of a Futurama comic book called Futurama Returns. I believe it was read by all the original cast members at this year’s Comic-Con. The featurette of Hypnotoad was funny because it was just 20 minutes of the toad that hypnotizes people. Occasional a different scene popped up but in the end, this was a waste of space. There’s some math featurette which just like math, bored the shit out of me. There’s a quick funny “evil” message from Al Gore concerning Global Warming. There’s a few other extras like scripts, deleted storyboards, and other minor things like that.

If you are a fan of Futurama, you should really get this DVD because it has a lot of funny moments. Maybe I’m being too hard on the show, but I thought it could have been better. Perhaps the writers will get less rusty and the next three straight to DVDs will be a lot funnier. Here’s hoping…

Features:
Comic Book live-reading
Message from Al Gore
Everybody Love Hypnotoad
and more!

Audio:
English, Spanish, French

Video:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: I liked the space battle and when Zoidberg glues back Hermes head onto his body.
Rating: NR
Running Time: 88 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: