Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! Blu-ray Movie Review

Disgusting, foul, and pointless, but that's the point.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 14, 2010

Have you ever even seen your show? It's filthy, it's racist, and it has a shocking lack of Dave Chappelle.

It's difficult to remember television before the deluge of reality programming dominated the airwaves. "Survivor," "American Idol," "The Real World," and "The Amazing Race" represent just the tip of the iceberg in what has become an absolute craze both in the United States and around the world. For some, the appeal of watching "real people" in "real situations" deal with and compete against their peers for cash, pride, fame, or whatever it is that motivates them to suspend their actual "real lives" in search of a dream is too much to resist. For others, the genre has taken on a life of its own and become a farcical reminder of just how far the television medium has fallen; nowadays, for every "traditional" program like "Breaking Bad" or "The Sopranos" there are dozens of "The Bachelor," "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire," and "Temptation Island." Love them or hate them, reality shows are a staple of American culture, and with reality overload, there was bound to be something to come along that promised to inject some new life and vitality into the mix. That "something" was "Drawn Together," an animated parody of shows like "Big Brother" that places several "unique" characters into a house and follows their excessively over-the-top exploits that are anything but "real." As profane, disgusting, disturbing, and morally corrupt as anything out there, "Drawn Together" certainly takes the "reality" out of "reality television," but then again, "reality" was always a term that was often only loosely descriptive of the genre.

Yes, a character makes out with a gradually-decaying corpse in 'The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!'

When the self-aware "Drawn Together" animated reality show house guests -- Foxxy Love, Princess Clara, Toot, Captain Hero, Ling-Ling, Wooldoor, Xandir, and Spanky Ham -- are required to partake in a house-wide contest that challenges them to stomp on puppies and kittens, they begin to question the motives of their producer, The Jew. The investigative Foxxy Love, the butt of jokes for her inability to solve mysteries, suddenly realizes she can swear without the words being censored. As the participants indulge in their newfound freedom, they slowly begin to realize that there's a reason they're not being censored. Indeed, a television guide search shows that "Drawn Together" has been cancelled and that they're no longer on the air. As they begin to search for answers and maintain their celebrity status, it is revealed that the network boss was looking at more than the ratings when he decided to cancel the show. Determined to wipe out the "Drawn Together" gang once and for all, he sends an animation-erasing robot dubbed "I.S.R.A.E.L." to eliminate them. Meanwhile, the gang is hit with a few doses of real "reality" along the way that both challenges what they thought they knew about themselves and threatens to tear them apart forever.

Beginning with the obligatory warning: "Drawn Together" is one of those new wave cartoons that looks suitable for children at-a-glance but is anything but. Moral vacancy, grotesque visuals, foul language, and political incorrectness abound, but the show's boundary-pushing is what separates it from the pack. That said, for those that can handle the material -- and it's as deliberately over-the-top as anything out there -- will find in "Drawn Together," and more relevant here, The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! an experience quite unlike anything else. Even South Park doesn't go quite this far; where Trey Parker and Matt Stone often use their show to smartly but usually subtly berate the social and political issues of the day, The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! is about as vacuous as it is foul, but for Writers Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein, the movie's aimlessness is really its selling point. Indeed, The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! realizes that it's nothing but pointless entertainment, and in the most base sense of the phrase at that. There are no morals, no lessons, no biting social commentaries; this is nothing more than animation run completely amok, a fantasy of sorts that places otherwise harmless characters that are rip-offs of the likes of Disney Princesses, Spongebob Squarepants, Superman, and Pikachu into a dirty reality television show that's probably the most foul cartoon ever to air on American television. Still, The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! ultimately comes to the conclusion that its pointlessness is what makes it work, and in that regard, the movie suddenly and surprisingly does become relevant in the way that it's self-aware of what it is and, better still, completely honest as to what it is and wants to be.

While The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! is best enjoyed by longtime fans of the recently-cancelled show (a real-life fact that the movie incorporates into its fantasy world plot), it proves easily accessible for newcomers in the way that it introduces and develops its characters, in large part because almost all of them are instantly-recognizable as other cartoon characters but given here a slightly different look and afforded the opportunity to be the antithesis of everything their opposites represent, do, and say in their respective "real" shows. Another benefit is the wide spectrum of material and styles the movie parodies. Characters are sometimes drawn and scripted differently from one another so as to better lampoon their counterparts, while also giving them a unique look and feel rather than simply keeping everything and everyone within some uniform style that wouldn't allow for the humorous interactions between them to work nearly as well. Additionally, the humor, while centered around the lowest common denominator, branches out throughout the movie to other, somewhat less offensive, elements, the highlight, perhaps, a scene that's like something out of Spaceballs where the characters turn to The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie!'s DVD (Blu-ray) audio commentary track to figure out how they'll get out of a jam. Of course, the film doesn't miss an opportunity to poke fun at commentaries themselves as the crucial scene is met with pointless banter between the participants rather than the substantive information the characters were hoping for. It's that kind of humor that keeps The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! from completely collapsing under the deluge of the sick and twisted jokes, grotesque visuals, and excessive sexual innuendo and activities that otherwise define the bulk of the movie.

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! debuts on Blu-ray with a 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer that's available with optional 3D scenes. More on the latter in a moment, but the primary presentation looks solid if not a bit routine. The image can appear just a tad soft, but lines are suitably sharp and there's no evidence of jagged edges or distracting banding. Colors are nicely resolved and showcase smooth gradations, through some appear with perhaps just a slight lack of vibrancy, whether analyzing the vomit-yellow and pink skin tones of Wooldoor and Spanky, respectively; The Jew Producer's baby blue sports coat; or Toot's heavy gray shading. Blacks tend to waver, sometimes looking somewhat washed out but at other times appearing very deep, inky, and true. Detail is adequate; the animation proves rather simple by nature, but the 1080p transfer allows for a sharper image and a better realization of some of the finer nuances in each frame, particularly during those scenes that take on a construction paper-like consistency and appear reminiscent of "South Park." Unfortunately, the 3-D scenes (glasses are not included; a special feature on the disc instructs viewers how to construct their own, but for the purpose of this review, a pair from the Journey to the Center of the Earth Blu-ray release were used) are terrible. It's not clear if the lack of a convincing 3-D experience is part of the gag, but it offers neither any sense of depth nor any "popping" effects that would show objects seemingly sticking out of the screen. The select 3-D scenes will only have the viewer seeing double as there's a terrible ghosting effect. Combined with awful color reproduction, The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! makes even mediocre anaglyph 3-D presentations like The Polar Express look fantastic. Obviously, viewers cannot expect anything like what's to be seen in the modern 3D experience, but this effort drags the video score down a notch, even if it is optional and only found in select scenes.

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! features a steady Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. This presentation is clear and accurate, with strongly-realized sound effects and a smooth and proficient musical delivery. Gunfire as heard in one early scene seems to zip across the listening area with an effortless flow, and various sound effects throughout the movie often engulf the listener and seem to move naturally from one speaker to the next. The picture doesn't produce much in the way of ambient support, but the strong sound effects and musical reproduction make up for the lack of a more consistently-immersive atmosphere. The picture's score is soundly reproduced, often accompanied by a fair amount of bass, particularly in some of the more comically over-pumped tracks scattered throughout the movie. Additionally, dialogue is sharp and focused, and the varied voices of the eight primary Drawn Together characters never come across as in any way muffled or unclear. While not a stunner of a soundtrack, Drawn Together's TrueHD lossless presentation is a good one, not lacking in any area and nicely supportive of all the movie has to offer from a sonic perspective.

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! arrives on Blu-ray with a hearty supplemental package, headlined by an audio commentary track featuring Writers/Producers Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, Writer/Developer Jordan Young, and Sound Designer Kurt Vanzo. The track is a bit scattered, with a mixture of relevant information and random off topic discussions. When the conversation does take a turn for the more interesting, the participants discuss their desire to craft a series that has no real point other than to entertain, the difficulty of writing for eight main characters, recording a phony commentary track for a sequence in the movie, and more. 'Drawn Together': True Confessionals 1080i, 12:16) features cast and crew speaking, sometimes with tongue planted in-cheek, on the show's cancellation, their thoughts on making a direct-to-video follow-up, the film's shock value, the process of voicing the characters, and possible future "Drawn Together" material. 'Drawn Together': The Legacy (480p, 4:16) looks back on the "importance" of "Drawn Together" to the world at large. Anatomy of an Animated Sex Scene (1080i, 5:32) examines the creation and implementation of the 3D sex scene found in the film. Next up is Re-Animating 'Drawn Together': From the Small Screen to the Slightly Bigger Screen (1080i, 9:46), a piece that looks at the differences between creating a show and a feature-length film. D.I.Y. 3-D Glasses (1080i, 2:14) shows viewers how to craft their own pair of 3-D glasses (they're not included in the package). Rounding out this package of extras are several deleted scenes (1080p, 8:45) and a collection of eight "Drawn Together" Minisodes (480p): Foxxy Love (4:54), Spanky Ham (4:30), Captain Hero (4:26), Wooldoor Sockbat (4:23), Princess Clara (4:18), Toot Braunstein (4:44), Ling Ling (4:10), and Xandir P. Whifflebottom (5:03).

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! isn't comedy gold, but fans of the cancelled show should find plenty in here to love. The humor is decidedly juvenile to the extreme, with every scene laced in profanity, packed with innuendo, and often accompanied by gratuitous graphic violence. It's best described as "weird," but to the writers' credit, the picture acknowledges its pointlessness and thereby gives it a free pass to do what it will, and oddly enough, make the material relevant thematically through its admission of irrelevancy. The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! will be a tough sell for those without at least a cursory knowledge of what the show is about, but it's a good jumping-in point, even if it does, seemingly wrap up the series. Paramount's Blu-ray release of The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie! is solid from top to bottom. Boasting a quality technical presentation (aside from the 3-D scenes) and a good assortment of extras, fans should have absolutely no reservations in picking this one up at their local Best Buy store, where this disc may be found as an exclusive release.