Starring Billy West, Katie Segal, John DiMaggio, Brittany Murphy, Dan Castellaneta, David Cross, Phil LaMarr
Written By:
Directed By: Peter Avanzino
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Buy on Amazon.com link

I thought the last Futurama movie fell short of the mark, but I think Futurama: the Beast with a Billion Backs is on par with some of the earlier episodes of the animated series. It’s funny, wacky and really out there. I’m not sure everyone will like it but I liked it a lot better than Bender’s Big Score.

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs is about a strange anomaly that happens out in space. There’s a tear in space and the team from Planet Express wins the chance to explore it. What’s behind the tear in space is a portal to another universe and Fry & the rest of the group find out what’s it is. A giant planet ends up being there and wants to take over the universe, but wants to be loved at the same time. While this is all happening, Bender is accepted into a secret robot society, Fry is dealing with his up & down relationship with Collen (Brittany Murphy), Amy & Kif get married and Zoidberg is still being Zoidberg. Characters that have been in previous episodes return as well like Zapp, Calculon, the heads of Stephen Hawking & Nixon, the Harlem Globetrotters and Robot Satan. All of this make for a classic Futurama movie.

I don’t know why, but I thought this Futurama DVD was a lot funnier than Bender’s Big Score. The jokes and the lines were really funny and made me laugh out loud a few times. I liked the storyline that there was a planet that was taking over everybody with its tentacles. Leela was of course one of the last few on Earth to not be in the spell of Yivo, the planet that was taking over everybody’s bodies. David Cross voiced the planet and did a great job with it. There’s something about David Cross’s voice that makes him sound pathetic, geeky and lonely (not a digg at Cross, he’s one of my favorite comedians). Or maybe that’s just the way he voiced him. All of the voice over acting has always been awesome on the show and still continues to be good. One thing I didn’t really like was the side story of Bender joining the Robot society. It just wasn’t really funny to me but I did like that Bender finally had his robot army to take over the world. But you’ll just have to find out what happens.

The special features included on the disc are as follows: Commentary with Matt Groening, David X Cohen and cast members, a lost Futurama episode in 3D, deleted scenes, David Cross talking about Yivo, bloopers and some quick featurettes. I watched the Bloopers first and it was fun to see all the voice over actors messing up their lines. I didn’t get a chance to listen to the commentary yet but I’m sure it’s insightful as it is funny. Futurama & Simpsons’ commentary usually are funny. The Lost Adventure full episode was funny because they made an episode out of the Futurama video game. Plus there’s commentary on that as well. That’s something worth watching after the featured length movie.

Overall, Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs is a funnier, better written movie than Bender’s Big Score. The DVD has some good extras on it as well. So this is definitely worth buying if you’re a Futurama fan!

Features:
– Commentary by Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Michael Rowe, Claudia Katz, Peter Avanzino and Lee Supercinski
– The Lost Adventure in 3-D, Sort Of!
– Storyboard Animatic
– Deleted Scenes
– David Cross eating popcorn
– Blooperama: The Futurama Cast at Work
– 3-D Models with Animator Discussion
– A Brief History of Deathball
– And as if that weren’t enough… Bender’s Game: A Sneak Peek at the Next Futurama Epic!

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC

Video:
Widescreen 1.78:1 Color

Subtitles:
English, Spanish

Favorite Scenes: I loved the deathball scene.
Rating: NR
Running Time: 89 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: