‘Sausage Party’ grills adults-only treats

Like some deranged transmission from an anarchic collective of former Pixar employees, Sausage Party doesn’t feel like a release so much as an escape.

Relentlessly filthy and often jaw-droppingly funny, this creation bearing the prolific imprint of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg is one of the most transgressive animated films to emerge from Hollywood in recent memory.

Adult animated fare is often more the province of smaller screens — there are trace elements of shows like HBO’s Animals and Netflix’s BoJack Horseman evident here — but Sausage Party, arriving amid yet another summer of safe, family-friendly CGI blockbusters, feels downright edgy.

Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon, the premise of Sausage Party is simple, yet diabolical: Food has feelings, and at the grocery store Shopwell’s, every day begins with a splashy musical ode to “the gods,” or the humans, who roam the aisles and take home everything from vegetables to condiments to a place the food calls “the Great Beyond.”

Rogen voices Frank, an easygoing hot dog whose girlfriend, a bun named Brenda (Kristin Wiig), yearns for the day they can be together. (No, the filmmakers are not above hot dog and bun sex jokes.) After some narrative-instigating chaos ensues — which spurs a very funny Saving Private Ryan spoof — Frank and Brenda join forces with an angry lavash (David Krumholtz), a lusty taco (Salma Hayek) and a bagel that sounds more than a little like Woody Allen ( Edward Norton).

For such a brazenly raunchy film — Sausage Party’s climactic scene is an audacious orgy of food that must be seen to be believed — Rogen, Goldberg and their collaborators don’t shy away from tackling weighty subject matter like the existence of faith and belief in a higher power, as well as puncturing racial and ethnic stereotypes (and, yes, also indulging in some cringe-inducing clichés).

The cast tackles its roles with gusto: Rogen and Wiig play off each other well, while Krumholtz, Hayek and Norton embrace Party’s absurd concept. Bill Hader also shines as the whacked-out Firewater, and Danny McBride registers briefly as the PTSD-afflicted Honey Mustard.

The film runs out of story before it runs out of energy, but Sausage Party tastes so unlike anything else at the multiplex this summer, that it’s tough to mind.

This story was originally published August 11, 2016 at 10:08 AM with the headline "‘Sausage Party’ grills adults-only treats."