6.29.2008

Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs

The silly sci-fi animated cartoon series Futurama continues its straight-to-DVD march with its latest installment, The Beast with a Billion Backs. The original voice cast is back, the humor is as goofy as ever, and the movie is a bit more fun that the previous release Bender's Big Score.

At the opening of The Beast with a Billion Backs, the rip in the universe still hangs in the sky from the end of the first movie. People are panicking over it, but they're a bit bored of panicking as well. Professor Farnsworth challenges his nemesis, Professor Wormstrom, to explore the tear, using the way all scientific disputes are resolved: Deathball! (I leave it to Scott, our resident scientist, to verify the accuracy of this method.)

Fry, meanwhile, has a new girlfriend Colleen (Brittany Murphy) but isn't thrilled to be living with her and her four other boyfriends. Bender is upset that the universal tear destroys any robots who enter it. Amy finally married Kif (sort of). Oh, and giant purple tentacles are pouring through the rift!

These tentacles belong to Yivo (softly and beautifully voiced by David Cross), a giant planet who is, shall we say, lonely. The tentacles attach themselved to the back of people's necks, making them fall in love with Yivo. Almost all life quickly becomes attached to it, and Leela seems to lead the few survivors. Bender, of course, is even more angry that it's something else that excludes robots.

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs plays like an extended episode of Futurama -- but a good one! There's a lot of fun with the situations, and laughs flow like tentacles through a tear in the universe. (You know, I always wanted to say that.) There are a few extras on the dvd, including audio commentaries, the clips from the Futurama video game (with optional commentary), and a preview of the next movie, Bender's Game. Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs is a good movie with plenty of laughs.

Overall Grade: B+

Reviewed by James Lynch

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