Brilliant and touching

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This is the third straight-to-DVD film from Matt Groening's second most (if not more) popular show Futurama. Basically prices of fuel of rising, especially for dark matter which is declining, making Prof. Farnsworth (Billy West) to cancel ship travel in case they waste fuel. Leela (Katey Sagal) of course breaks this rule and as a result has to wear a shock collar to control temper tantrums, but later she enjoys the shocks. Meanwhile, Bender feels left out of a game of Dungeons & Dragons because he has no imagination, but when he does he gives himself the new name "Titanius Anglesmith" in the realm of Cornwood, he believes he is a knight, has gone crazy and is put in an institute. Farnsworth finds out that even with the fuel shortage, Mom (Tress MacNeille) is still making a fortune, and the only way to stop her is to get the "anti-backwards" matter next to dark matter, rendering it all useless. It is when Bender shows up that everyone is plunged into his mad medieval world to continue the fight as the mythical characters they have become, with segments spoofing both Dungeons & Dragons, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Fry (also West) is the one who obsesses over the power of the opposite matter, and becomes a Gollum like character. In the end, Mom does manage to get her opposite matter back, only to have Cornwood collapse on itself, Farnsworth hugs his newfound son (with Mom) Igner (also Di Maggio) as they both swallowed the opposite matters, and dark matter is now worthless, meaning they must find new source of fuel. Also starring Billy West as Dr. Zoidberg, Tress MacNeille as Nurse Ratchet, Maurice LaMarche as Morbo and Calculon, Phil LaMarr as Hermes Conrad, Lauren Tom as Amy Wong, Frank Welker as Nibbler, Rich Little and George Takei. It has its moments of action, and there are some good small gags and spoofs, but the story isn't the most engaging, but it is worth watching. Oh by the way, the new fuel is apparently whale oil, according to the next, and possibly last (?) film, Into the Wild Green Yonder. The TV series was number 26 on The 100 Greatest Cartoons. Good!

This is my favorite Futrama movie so far. The jokes are hilarious and there is an interesting plot and theme. Dr Zoidberg is funny as always, and the D&D theme will amuse every fan of Futurama (after all, there is a little nerd in all of us, right?).Nibbler is central to one of the plots in the movie, and he's cute and fuzzy race is a welcome addition back into the fold as Fry and the Planetary express crew fight against Mom's robot empire.One of the best cartoon movies ever! I don't know how some of the other reviews can say that the jokes in this latest installment of Futurama fall flat, they are outright hilarious, a lot better than the 2nd one. Bender really shines in this movie, going crazy and turning into a giant LOTR nerd. I give it a 4/5. Go watch it now!

Matt Groening had spawned another winner with Futurama: Bender's Game. I would had never viewed Dungeons & Dragons as being that imaginative. I played Dungeons & Dragons when I was much younger, but did not possess the imagination that Bender displayed with that version. Bender was accused of not having an imagination at first, but when he finally grasped one, Bender could not separate fiction from reality. Frankly, I would had settled for Bender's version of "reality" because at least there were surprises at every corner. Sometimes surprises are better than the same mundane ruts we had forced ourselves into. The final battle between dark matter reminded me so much how we are dependent upon oil from foreign countries. At least the professor was smart enough to create another crystal that would eliminate dependency on dark matter when they were within a certain range of each other. I would certainly play this version of Dungeons & Dragons, mainly for the creativity and most importantly, for a more positive outcome for the world today. Futurama: Bender's Game was certainly worth the viewing pleasure and with Matt Groening at the helm, you cannot miss.

Direct-to-DVD movie; Genre: Animated Comedy, Science Fiction; Content Rating: Not Rated (contains animated violence and gore and pervasive scatological humor); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 – 4); In the first DVD movie outing the folks at "Futurama" took on internet scammers and time travel. In the 2nd, dating and religion through an intergalactic monster movie. Now in the third feature-length film, "Bender's Game", they cobble together the energy crisis and Dungeons and Dragons. It's a melding that this time could have used a few more trips to the writing table to get it to solidify.In this self-contained adventure, the Planet Express crew suffers from the escalating price of rocket fuel dark matter, provoking Professor Farnsworth (Billy West) to go up against the maniacal head of Mom Corp (Tress MacNeille) who single-handedly controls the supply. Meanwhile, Leela (Katy Sagal) is disciplined for her violent temper and Bender (John DiMaggio) is accused of not having an imagination by the players of Dungeons and Dragons and is driven to robot madness by the game.The first act of "Game" is something of a dream come true. For the first time the crew headed by David X. Cohen, Matt Groening and director Dwayne Carey-Hill ("Bender's Big Score") take advantage of the feature-length running time to slow things down a bit. The first act is a refreshing turn of a character comedy for this normally lightning-fast sci-fi satire in which details set-up in the series are brought to a head, notably some repressed anger from Leela toward Zoidburg and her appropriately hilarious reaction to a shock collar, a somewhat clever flashback to Nibbler's first meeting with the crew and the long promised next epic confrontation with Mom. As possibly the show's best villain, it's welcome to see this Mom story finally realized and MacNeille is something of a powerhouse in the voice performance. This is her time to shine. This section of the movie is in flashes some of the best work the show has done.While D&D is established early and often, it still doesn't help cushion the wild, hard left turn the movie takes from its energy/Mom story to randomly and literally (and I do mean literally) dropping the characters into a D&D fantasy world. In this section the moderately funny, full of potential story is completely abandoned and the movie curls up and dies. Cohen, Carey-Hill and company totally indulge in their nerdiest impulses and to hell with the story. More disappointingly, they choose to parody some of the most obvious and mainstream fantasy sources – mostly "Lord of the Rings". The characters are put into a mix-&-match parody blender. All of a sudden Leela is a centaur, Fry is Frydo who acts like Gollum, the Professor is Gandolf who takes a "Star Wars" turn and Zoidburg is a giant cave monster. "Futurama's" strength has always been that it isn't mainstream. "Game" is a broad, easily accessible palette cleanser of toilet humor and forced gags after the sharp, iconoclastic and surreal "Beast With A Billion Backs" - which for my money is still the triumph of the movie series so far.The D&D section of the film didn't have to be a mindless lost cause. But the "Futurama" crew doesn't in any way make an attempt to resolve the first and 2nd acts of the movie with it. As randomly as our heroes entered the world, they leave it just in time for a quick wrap-up. The Game portion of "Game" is head-slappingly obvious filler that will probably send most viewers to the show's famously great commentary tracks for an explanation (Cohen and Groening give nothing). Instead of the creative or scientific explanation we've come to expect from Futurama, "Bender's Game" leaves us with the classically disappointing "It was All a Dream" ending. It's a punch in the face.The movie is randomly entertaining and I do love the extended mix of the show's theme that plays over the credits, but this is a hard one to recommend even to hardcore fans of the show.* * ½ / 4