Tom Russell Reviews Colon "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters"

It's been charged that the movie is just a ninety minute version of the show-- the longest episode on record. And I would agree. It did feel like one very long episode of the television series. But, again, it being a series that I enjoy, I didn't have a problem with that so much.

I came into it expecting it not to make a whole lot of sense. I expected the humour to be brutal and surreal. If roughly the first forty minutes of a film is devoted to assembling an exercise machine, you can't really fault it for being weird.

In many ways, it was in keeping with the show-- but I think that, in the end, it was missing the heart of it. And that heart is Carl Brutananadilewski.

The surreal humour of the series is anchored by the strong characterization. If there were no characters, the show would truly be without a point and, more importantly, a frame of reference. Since one can count on Meatwad to be dumb, Master Shake to be selfish and abusive, and Frylock to be the straight man, one not only has schtick and character relationships to look forward to in a given episode, but also a status quo, a standard of normality to be violated in increasingly interesting ways.

But if the only characters were these three, the show would be too insular, the structure too hermetically sealed. Meatwad will always be abused (except when he turns the tables) but generally not know any better. Master Shake will always be the aggressor, and Frylock is generally regulated to the Offisa Pup role. It is the character of Carl that makes the show truly special.

Carl is there to react to the various strange going-ons. When he is victimized, he doesn't simply accept it like Meatwad. He responds with a unique mixture of deadpan terror and shrieking anger. Having Carl say something as simple as, "You are weird" is incredibly amusing. Just the way he says it, supported by the equally deadpan style of animation.

Or, in one of my all-time favourite episodes, after Carl has been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past From the Future:

"I remember eating carpet. Not so much the robots and the lasers, though."

This kind of response-- simple, direct, and funny-- makes Carl a sort of "viewpoint" character. Just as Robin was introduced as a character that children can identify with, making the Batman more palpable, Carl makes the adventures of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force more accessible. It's not the brutality or dadaism that I find appealing in the show, but rather Carl's response to it.

What makes him very interesting as a viewpoint-type character is that he's not the blank slate usually prescribed for such a role. In fact, he should be pretty damn impossible to like. Here's someone who has a number of unhealthy obsessions, habits, and viewpoints, ranging from token misogyny to a complete and utter disregard for his own personal safety:

But my point is, without Carl, the entire enterprise is thrown severly out of whack. He provides a weird sort of comic straight man to the various proceedings.

And in the case of the film, quite frankly, there's not enough Carl. While Carl is somewhat integral to the plot, he very seldom gets the time to act (or, more accurately, to react) like Carl. With nothing to really anchor the movie's surrealism, it unfolds something akin to a very long geek show, or a film like Pink Flamingos. Parts are entertaining, parts are distasteful, but on a whole, the entire thing feels like a film made in some alternate universe with only a very tentative relationship to our own.

Tom Russell is a filmmaker. His current film is The Man Who Loved.