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Honestly, I’m speechless. Well, not really, because otherwise I couldn’t write this review, but let’s just say that I’m speechless and roll with it. Usually, when I’m presented with a bad movie, it’s no big deal. I just brush it off, give it a half-hearted “whatever”, and move on with my mundane life. However, Foodfight! is a bit different, in that I just can’t seem to ignore it. It’s not because it’s actually good or anything; it’s horrendous and also not invited to my birthday party ever. However, while Foodfight! isn’t good in the slightest, it does what the best bad movies do: it intrigues me. Unlike something like the Emoji Movie, where it’s totally uninteresting in every way possible, Foodfight! manages to do something so bafflingly bad that I can’t help but say that I wanted to learn more about it. Foodfight!’s history and the situation surrounding it manage to conglomerate into a uniquely bad experience, akin to the age-old saying of watching a train wreck and not being able to look away, except with the added bonus of knowing that the conductor of that train had 3 arms and was only 12 years old, leading to more questions that you only wish could be answered. So, let’s dive into this mess of product placement, confusing writing, awful characters, and…the animation, and pick apart Lawrence Kasanoff’s Foodfight!.

Believe it or not, this film was not released in 1994, even though it has animation that Reboot (the first ever CG-animated tv show to air, in case you didn’t know) would laugh at, but 2012. To put that in perspective, Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, and Hotel Transylvania also released in 2012. What makes this even better is that Foodfight! was supposed to release in 2003 for Christmas, but Kasanoff reported that the hard drive containing data on the film was “stolen” in an act of “industrial espionage”, causing the film to be delayed for, well, quite some time, until it was finally picked up again (at an auction, no less) and rushed out for a 2012 release date. Along with the confusing production time is the confusing production budget of…*ahem*, $65 million, which is about $65 million more than most high school projects with the outcome being about 65 times worse than those same projects. Add in famous celebrity cameos that were outdated even when they were in-date and 200 tons of product placement and you have a recipe for the most beautifully-crafted disaster in your hands. Hopefully, now, you can see what I mean by this movie’s history being “intriguing”, to say the least, and that’s without even going into what this movie is *about*.

So, what is this movie about, you may ask. Well, Foodfight! stars Dex Dogtective, who is the leader of a supermarket named Marketopolis Market, which comes to life at night or when people aren’t around or…if the movie won’t bother to build its own world, then I won’t bother to question it. Dex is also voiced by the cocaine crazy himself, Charlie Sheen, and that may or may not be an explanation for about half of the confusing things in this movie. In this market, a new product by the name of Brand X starts sweeping the shelves, and Dex starts to get suspicious. As his girlfriend, Sunshine Goodness, which is a name that just makes me want to hurt someone, is kidnapped after Brand X makes its debut, Dex investigates with his totally-not annoying, racist stereotype, Daredevil Dan, voiced by Wayne Brady, to find out what’s going on with the totally-not-obviously-a-metaphor-for-Nazis-because-we-needed-more-offensive-topics, Brand X, who is led by Lady X and Mr. Clipboard. Go ahead, look this up. These are all real names.

As you look up this film because you still refuse to believe it exists (believe me, I tried to forget it), you’ll find many recognizable faces. You’ve probably seen them in your local grocery store, and you may have even used some of their products. That’s right, this movie is filled to the brim with obnoxious product placement, probably because the screenwriters knew there was no other way they were going to milk money out of this. However, even though the products, known in-universe as “ikes”, are everywhere in this movie, they do virtually nothing. They don’t really help the important stereotypes much, they don’t really contribute to the plot, and they aren’t even given any funny or clever lines. They represent nothing to this film, yet they’re plastered everywhere the writers and animators could place them, even going so far as to put them larger than the main characters on the box art. This just atones to how bad the writing for this movie is – having one of the central ideas in the movie be reduced to such a miniscule, meaningless role.

The main characters aren’t much better. Dex, Daredevil Dan, Sunshine Goodness, they’re all just character archetypes that I’ve seen in other movies, but done better. Dex is the kind-hearted but mildly aloof hero, Sunshine is the love interest, Daredevil Dan is the physical representation of all of the nightmares in my dreams, they’ve all been done before. The only thing that this movie consists of is a bunch of food-related puns, and, as a certified pun expert myself, I can affirm that these are some of the most forced puns that I’ve ever witnessed. I can’t even really say that the premise is all that bad – a rip-off of Toy Story, but not that bad – yet the execution of each of the movie’s few good ideas is done so poorly that it comes off as insanely perplexing more than anything. The writing makes everything in the movie feel almost surreal, but not in a good way; more in a “what in the world am I even watching” kind of way. It’s so bad, yet I just can’t look away, no matter how much I try.

The animation is another thing entirely. All the characters stretch around the screen, almost like they’re being pulled by a mouse. Most of the time, characters stop moving, like they just…die. Their blank stares would send nightmares to any adult, and this movie’s for kids! Kids! You can just tell, with how bad the movie looks, that it was definitely rushed out, even though they restarted working on it in 2007! That’s 5 years, and the animation would make an amateur high school animator laugh hysterically. You can even tell that they were trying to be ambitious with the camera angles and differing shots, but it all jumbles together into an incomprehensible mess. However, there’s little I can do with just words to show you just how laughably bad the animation is, so I implore you: if you want a really good laugh and/or really want to lose your faith in humanity, look up any trailer for Foodfight! You’ll more than likely achieve both in an instant.

Overall, all I can say is, if you want a really good laugh, watch this movie with some friends, preferably at night when all of you are really tired and loopy. However, as much as I rant on this film, it’s one of those “so bad it’s good” films that I love so much. There’s nothing better than watching an absolute travesty play out in front of you, especially when you know that absolutely zero effort went into making it. Unlike the Emoji Movie, which was a bad movie but wasn’t bad enough to be enjoyable, Foodfight! provides such a bad experience that I can’t help but laugh as my soul slowly withers away each time I view it. Don’t get me wrong, though, it’s still really, really bad. If you want an actual movie, then you’re looking in the wrong place and should stay far, far away from this glorious travesty. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna banana-split on out of here!

…help me.