In an age when a show like Family Guy can be cancelled and then resurrected to become even more popular than before, Futurama arose from the ashes from its FOX cancellation not with more episodes in store for fans, but a series of direct-to-DVD movies. Futurama - Bender's Game is the third release in the series, and if you ask this reviewer's opinion (which, by reading this review, you are) they should have stopped after the first installment.
Futurama - Bender's Big Score, the first direct-to-DVD feature-length Futurama movie was excellent. It reintroduced all the classic Futurama characters in a well-written, well-thought-out story that tied together a lot of loose ends from the show. Not only that, but it was damn funny throughout to boot.
Then along came Futurama - The Beast With a Billion Backs. While this second installment had its moments, it paled in comparison with Bender's Big Score. The story was looser and not nearly as funny throughout.
Now with the emergence of Futurama - Bender's Game, the direct-to-DVD series finally sinks to the depths of mediocrity usually associated with the term "direct-to-DVD," with only scattered laughs and an equally scattered plot.
Bender becomes addicted to Dungeons and Dragons after learning to access his imagination and must be sent to the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots to "cure" him of his medieval fantasies. Meanwhile, the rest of the Planet Express crew deals with the rising cost of dark matter fuel. It turns out that Mom is the sole provider of the stuff and has been raking in record profits by raising costs under the guise of a dark matter shortage. Professor Farnsworth realizes that he has an item in his possession that will negate the power of the dark matter to be used as fuel and the crew embarks to stop Mom's evildoing, but inadvertently amplifies the power of the dark matter to turn Bender's imaginary medieval world into an alternate universe.
Article comments
1 - David S. Mihocik
Wow, you seem to be the only review who disliked this. Pretty much ever other review states that this movie is the apex of the three so far (I'm still partial to BBS) But Bender's Game in my opinion was still excellent.
Watch it again.
2 - El Bicho
No he isn't, Dave. Look around
3 - Cher
I agree with this review, I was really bored with this film, and I loved Bender's Big Score and the series (and thought Billion Backs was okay). I'm hoping the last film will go out with a bang, but this one felt a wasted opportunity because of the writing.