Another five months, another Futurama movie – at this rate we’ll have the much demanded fifth season in four months. Perhaps, Fox will resurrect the show a la Family Guy to the cacophonous cheers of geekdom. This can be great, or merely … nice, depending on the quality delivered.

Bender’s Game’s says what it is on the box: a sci-fi favorite diving into fantasy for a hilarious romp through a D&D-esque world. First they guest star Gary “Lord of Nerds” Gygax in the series, now they pay full homage to his memory by glorifying his life’s work. Double-decker Win cake with a gooey filling of awesome sauce, right? This story however doesn’t really start until half way through the feature.

The first sixty-odd minutes features a main plot about battling the domination of the mega mogul Mom with a B story about Leela’s anger issues and a tertiary bit about Bender exploring his new imagination thorough an old school tabletop fantasy game. Does this sound like the description you’d expect given the box art and advertising blurbs? No? Then you understand the DEEP INNER EAR ITCH ANNOYANCE I was beginning to develop for the movie.

“Movie“: your pardon citizens, this is not a True account of this third installment. It is a pair of long episodes stapled together. Notice “long“, not epic. Epic stories are generally good over a sizable duration, while long shows make the duration acute. Bender’s Game didn’t drag on however. It just feels that way as you wonder whether or not you grabbed the right movie off the DVD shelf – “Is this an old episode I missed?” Half way through the intertwined stories reverse priority and you get what you came for, but I was actually expecting a bit more role playing in-jokes or Futurama trademark satire.

The writers Groening and Cohen (the series creator and lead series crafter) seem unwilling to commit to the fantasy tale promised, and when they do get to it the writing begins to feel rushed – like when you’re tired from work but need to write an article Friday night because technical issues prevented you from posting a new Dominion Cast episode and you’re hoping your regular readers don’t mind, but since they’re mostly silent anyway why the fuck not?

The jokes were decent but not really what you’d expect for having waited for a new Futurama joint. Some gags were set up chuckle worthy to be called back upon funny later, than less the next time, then tired when referred to a third time. Many punch lines were ironically beaten to death. Most were hit and miss but the whole thing is overall funny for the sheer volume of jokes written in. There’s was one scene with “Morcs” that was brilliantly funny for it’s non sequitar feel – the inability to see a gag coming was a hallmark of the Groening brand and now too sparse. It’s almost as though they had to remember the feel of Futurama.

Despite this, the third feature was overall funny and definitely rent worthy, purchase worthy to complete the set – but you could stand to wait for a discounted gift set with all the movies.

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