GAH! A Monster! (Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs (DVD))

Member Name: bailey_kipper_uk

Product:	Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs (DVD)
Date:	14/07/08 (64 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good random laughs

Disadvantages: Not very good story

This is the 2nd in a series of 4 films that will make up series 5 of Futurama. If you read my previous review on the 1st film (Bender's Big Score) then you can skip this next bit, otherwise read on...

What is Futurama
~~~~~~~~~~~

The main character is Philip J Fry and the premise is that he was cryogenically frozen at the turn of the millenium Dec 31 1999, and unfrozen 1000 years later. In the past he was a Pizza delivery boy and in the future he delivers packages for his great great great (and lots more greats) nephew's intergalatic delivery business, called Planet Express.

Main Characters
~~~~~~~~~~

Fry is clearly the main character and during one episode he finds out his freezing wasn't accidental, also during the first film he finds out he also has a tattoo on his ass that contains code for opening time portals.

Bender is Fry's best friend but is a robot, a thieving, alcoholic, and downright double crossing robot.

Leela is Fry's love interest except she generally doesn't reciprocate it. She always thought she was the last of her kind, but it turned out she was a mutant from the sewers, who only has one eye.

The Professor is the head of Planet Express and also Fry's great great great (you get the idea) nephew, he is actually somewhere over 160 years old, but can't admit that otherwise he would be taken away to the old folks home in the sky.

The other main characters are Dr Zoidberg who is a penniless, hopeless doctor who loves eating garbage. His species are similar to lobsters and have a rather strange development in younger life going through many different forms, until reaching their adult shape. Hermes Conrad is the company accountant who is a high level bureaucrat and makes sure everything is in order, he is also a former limbo champion and has a sworn enemy in Barbados Slim who often tries to steal his wife. Amy Wong is the last main character and she is a long term intern. Her parents own half of Mars and long for her to meet a rich handsome man, but she falls for Kif who is a lizard like creature and the assistant to Captain Zapp Brannigan (the hero of many space fights but supremely incompetent).

The film
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Ok, getting onto the film. This is a lot more random than the last one, the main storyline being about an alien from another universe. The alien has been trapped there forever, but was able to escape due to the hole in the universe created during the first film.

The alien has billions of tentacles and is infinitely large. It manages to ensnare everyone in our universe and decrees Fry as the Pope. He is Pope of a religion worshipping the tentacles, as everyone is in love with the tentacles (everyone who has been captured by it anyway).

It is later found out the aliens tentacles are actually genetalia and the alien is actually having sex with them all. The remaining story is about what happens after this.

There are a few sub plots, of course one involving Fry in which he gets together with a girl called Colleen. However he soon finds out that she has 4 other boyfriends who all share a place with her. Fry breaks up with her however that's not the end of that...

Also, there is another sub plot involving the Professor and his arch rival Professer Wornstrom. The 2 professors both want to explore the other universe and so resolve whose team will go by playing a game of Deathball. This is played on a big labyrinth, based on a revolving table. The twist is that each of their crews are running around the labyrinth being chased by massive balls. The tilt is being controlled by the 2 professors who need to get the balls into the holes in the labyrinth, boucing it off one of their own crew to score points.

The last main sub plot is about Bender and how he joins the League of Robots. This is quite a funny plot and involves Calculon who is the best robot actor (in Bender's opinion), but he hams up every part so much. So much so that in one episode he realises he is actually blackmailing himself!

Summary
~~~~~~

This is a funny film, more funny than the last. However it is quite random and the main storyline isn't that interesting, it is the many sub plots that contain most of the laughs. In general it has received really good reviews from most fans, many of whom preferred it to the first. However I'm going to stick my neck out and say I preferred the first one.

There's 2 more films in this series to come, over the next few months, hopefully they will be funnier and more enjoyable than the first two.

Summary: Good fun film, not as good overall as the first one though.