Movie Review: Hell and Back

In the annals of time, animated comedy for adults in movies is often rare, but this year seems to be a resurgence of sorts, probably due to studios seeing the success of an animated teddy bear that cusses and smokes pot in Seth MacFarlane’s Ted. Since then, Seth Rogen has announced an adult animated comedy, Anomalisa has been released to rave reviews at TIFF 2015, and hope is slowly but surely being restored that more of this ilk can be seen soon.

Hell and Back will one day be looked on as important due to its aesthetic and production quality, but not as the genre’s finest as a result of a script with not a lot of weight added to it. The voice performances in a rather stellar cast range from excellent (Bob Odenkirk) to downright depressing (Mila Kunis), but one cannot deny the Babe Ruth-esque swing that this feature takes as it steps up to bat.

The premise of the movie is weak as hell. Due to a disagreement over an Altoid, a blood oath is made valid, and sends amusement park manager Curt (Rob Riggle) to hell where he is scheduled to be executed. Augie (TJ Miller) and Remy (Nick Swardson) go to hell to try and save their friend, but get sidetracked by a daughter’s (Deema) quest to be reunited with her father Orpheus (voiced by Danny McBride).

Hell, actually doesn’t seem like a terrible place, though one of my favorite parts of the movie early on that then goes away for some reason is a demon at various booths teasing a soul (voiced by Paul F. Tompkins) with “This Is Hell” bits. Everything from trying to order a pizza from a Taco Bell/Pizza Hut to drinking Strawberry-flavored Quik is made mention, and it’s pretty hilarious. Hell is ran more or less like The Office, and Satan is Michael Scott to which Odenkirk dazzles. Inept employees are all over the place, staff meetings are the norm, and a boss trying to make himself look opposing to his colleagues all the while looking good for a potential love interest (in this case, and angel named “Barbara” voiced by a clearly-not-giving-a-shit Susan Sarandon).

When humans begin invading hell, Satan’s being driven crazy trying to keep tabs on all of them. Curt is trying his best to stave off his execution while Remy and Augie are targets for resurrection by the aforementioned Barbara. Problem is, the latter two travel through the deep, dark depths of hell looking for the one guy who has experience in transporting humans from hell to Earth…Orpheus. As mentioned, Remy and Augie come across Deema, and if it weren’t for the fact that Mila Kunis sounded bored out of her mind reading her lines as the half-demon/half-human, I would probably give more of a shit about the journey. Swardson and Miller do their best to keep a consistent humorous pace throughout the feature, and for the most part, do a great job of it, but I couldn’t help but wonder if A) someone else could’ve come in and voiced Deema or B) the character was removed altogether, I would have enjoyed the film more. Danny McBride essentially voices Thadeous from Your Highness, but animated, which isn’t a bad thing because that movie was funny, too. I could’ve done without all of the singing at the end, especially the disastrous duet with Sarandon, but overall he showcases his dependability no matter what genre of film he’s in.

The dialogue for the movie, needed a lot of work, but the producers did smart by hiring a bunch of cast that have sterling backgrounds in voice. Jon Benjamin (Archer) goes under the radar in terms of billing, but is brilliant at playing a sex offender, but there are so many demons and it could be difficult for you to keep track of them all. Dana Snyder’s “Garthog” is probably the most obvious of the bunch, but Paul Scheer (Head Demon), Michael Pena (Abigor), and Kyle Kinane (Demon Head) all contribute to my amusement. But, as mentioned, the dialogue was weak almost the entire film. The first 30 minutes is fat jokes, ‘metal is old jokes’ (you’re losing points right there), and tired gay jokes. If this film were produced 10 years ago, some of those jokes would be funny, but in this day and age they are somewhat dated. Every bit of Mila Kunis’ dialogue was written like shit, and sounded even worse.

Fortunately, all of Odenkirk’s dialogue is brilliant and is enough to keep me glued. As a matter of fact, if we had a show all about hell, and Odenkirk’s Satan running it, I would watch that show. Granted it would make 10 years to make because ShadowMachine put a fuck of a lot of stellar detail into their character designs (seriously, this studio is sensational), but I would watch it.

It’s ironic that this film is called Hell and Back, because I definitely loved the hell part of the movie, but the human element (despite strong vocal performances by all) is lost as a result.  As mentioned in the opening, Hell and Back will be remembered for a stellar production effort by Shadowmachine with strong vocal performances from its leading characters, but the dialogue will be forgotten, and this looks to be Mila Kunis’ last acting effort for quite a while not named Family Guy, which could be a good thing.