Foodfight! (2012)

Foodfight!
A story of what happens when good animated film food.... goes bad. - Foodfight!'s tagline
Genre: Adventure Comedy Directed By: Lawrence Kasanoff Produced By: George Johnsen Lawrence Kasanoff Joshua Wexler Written By/Screenplay: Lawrence Kasanoff Joshua Wexler Starring: Charlie Sheen Wayne Brady Hillary Duff Eva Longoria Larry Miller Christopher Lloyd Distributed By: Viva Pictures Release Date: June 15, 2012 (United Kingdom) May 7, 2013 (United States) Runtime: 87 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $45–65 million Box Office: $73,706

"Foodfight! is the worst thing in the history of anything ever. But at the same time, I couldn't help to be fascinated by how ungrateful and artless it is. "

— I Hate Everything

"Final Verdict: Just to sum up the obvious, Foodfight! is an unfunny, inappropriate, insensitive, and aggravating piece of trash. It's a perfect example of why certain people should not be allowed to make movies."

— Cynical Reviews

"This is awful! IT'S AWFUL! I'd much rather read the credits like I'm reading a memorial of all the poor people who gave their lives to this horribleness! All adding up to shit! $65 MILLION OF SHIT!!"

— Nostalgia Critic

Foodfight! is a 2012 computer-animated adventure comedy film directed by Lawrence Kasanoff and produced by Threshold Entertainment. The film takes place in a supermarket which, after closing time, transforms into a city where all the citizens are personified and anthropomorphic well-known marketing icons.

The movie originally had a Christmas 2003 theatrical release; however, it was delayed, as the project had to start over with only what little remained since it was reported that hard drives containing unfinished assets from the film were stolen (in what was quoted as an act of "industrial espionage") and that no backups were available (which was somewhat proven false by an unknown Reddit user who said the film was deleted. However, both of these claims were proven false by the recent YouTube documentary, ROTTEN: Behind the Foodfight). It was released a decade later after being auctioned off and "finished" as quickly and cheaply as possible. Its state would lead it to become known as one of the worst animated movies of all time, and a serious contender for the title of outright worst.

Plot

After closing time, the supermarket of Marketropolis transforms into a city, in which the citizens are personified and anthropomorphic marketing icons, also known as "Ikes". After rescuing kittens from the Fat Cat Burglar, Dex Dogtective, a heroic cereal mascot, informs his friend Daredevil Dan, a chocolate squirrel, about his plan to propose to his girlfriend, Sunshine Goodness, a raisin mascot. While Dex and Sunshine are dating, Dan attempts to draw a picture of Dex proposing to Sunshine using the smoke exhaust from his plane but said plane crashes and Sunshine goes to ensure Dan's safety before Dex can propose. When Dan returns, Dex has no idea about the whereabouts of Sunshine.

Six months later, Brand X representative Mr. Clipboard arrives at Marketropolis to persuade Leonard, the store's manager, to stock products made by Brand X. There, he stomps onto a bag of potato chips, which becomes a topic of discussion within the Ike community. In his apartment, Dex is having a nightmare in which he is unable to find Sunshine and falls to his death just before Dan wakes him up; upon realizing that Dex had another nightmare about Sunshine, Dan tries to convince him to accept the fact that she is gone, but Dex is reluctant to do so, feeling like he has failed her. At Dex's club, the Copabanana, Dex is having a conversation with Kaptain Krispy, the Ike whose bag of potato chips was crushed; moments later, the seductive Brand X detergent Ike, Lady X, arrives, causing a commotion. When Krispy is suspicious of Lady X, Dan argues with him. When Krispy attacks Dan, a massive food fight breaks out between the other Ikes, but Dex orders everybody out of his club. Dan leaves with Lady X.

Lady X drops in on Dex in his apartment and attempts to seduce him. Upon hearing a scream from outside, Dex leaves his apartment, only to find a group of Ikes dead in the street; the death of an Ike causes their products to expire. Upon being asked to investigate, Dex is initially reluctant to do so until he is convinced that the currently missing Dan is there for him. Brand X products quickly replace prior products, and Dex begins to suspect Lady X, who attempts to bring him over to her side. When he refuses to do so, he is rendered unconscious. He awakens to discover that he is locked inside a dryer with Dan to be melted before the two manage to escape by using a sock. The two realize that Lady X and her forces are going to take over Marketropolis and later discover that Brand X contains an addictive and toxic ingredient.

When they attempt to initiate a recall on Leonard's computer, they discover that Sunshine and another brand, Priscilla Prusly's Genetically Giant Prunes, were recalled by Brand X. Dex and Dan send a message to recall all of Brand X's products, but not before the computer's power is cut by Lieutenant X, a subordinate of Lady X. With help from Vlad Chocool, Dex and Dan return to the city to rally the citizens of Marketropolis to engage in a massive food fight against the armies of Brand X. As part of a plan, the citizens create lightning rods out of tin foil and put them on the top of their buildings while Cheasel T. Weasel goes to cut the power. When the power is cut, a lightning storm is summoned and destroys the Brand X fortresses, none of which have lightning rods.

Upon entering the main Brand X fortress, Dex discovers that Sunshine had been held hostage, right before being caught by Lady X, who orders Lieutenant X to execute them both and leaves him to it. When Sunshine is about to be executed, Dex disarms Lieutenant X of his weapon and causes him to fall onto the floor. Dex shoots a raisin from Sunshine out of his mouth as it flies toward Lieutenant X's weapon and pushes it towards him, killing Lieutenant X. Dex rescues Sunshine and escapes the building with the help of Dan, but Mr. Clipboard enters the Ikes' world; he is subsequently taken down by Dex and his allies, who discover that he is a robot controlled by Lady X.

Lady X reveals that she had previously been Priscilla Prusly, the hideous Ike of Priscilla Prusly's Genetically Giant Prunes, an unsuccessful brand of prunes. After becoming jealous of Sunshine, she had them both recalled. She has received plastic surgery in Brazil and had been stealing Sunshine's essence to create Brand X. Lady X is about to overpower Dex in a fight, but she is defeated by Sunshine and is subsequently reverted to her true form — a hideous hunchbacked woman, much to everyone's shock and disgust. Priscilla is then taken to the expiration station to be disposed of. With Brand X defeated and a cure found that revives the deceased Ikes, Dex and Sunshine finally marry.

Production

Lawrence Kasanoff and Joshua Wexler, an employee of Threshold Entertainment, Kasanoff's production company, created the concept in 1997. A $25 million joint investment into the project was made by Threshold and the Korean investment company Natural Image. The film's producers expected foreign pre-sales and loans against the sales would provide the remaining portion of the budget. The estimated remainder was $50 million.

The film was created and produced by the digital effects shop at Threshold, located in Santa Monica, California in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In late 2002/early 2003, Kasanoff reported that hard drives containing unfinished assets from the film had been stolen in what he called an act of "industrial espionage". None of this footage or data has ever been found, with the only evidence of the original film even existing being an early trailer (though this could be the remaining footage that wasn't stolen since the trailer contains shots from the finished film) and snippets of it appearing in other videos, particularly a promotional video for Threshold. This caused the animators to have to start from scratch.

The film was supposed to be animated with exaggerated use of "squash and stretch" to resemble the Looney Tunes shorts, but after production resumed in 2004, Kasanoff changed it to a style more centered in motion capture, with the result being that "he and animators were speaking two different languages".

Lionsgate established a distribution deal and the financing company StoryArk represented investors who gave $20 million in funding to Threshold in 2005 due to the Lionsgate deal, the celebrity voice actors (none of whom could get out of their contracts), and the product tie-ins (many of which, as it turned out, could). Its release date in 2005 was later announced but missed. Another distribution deal was struck in 2007, but again, nothing came of it. Lionsgate had a negative reaction to the delays. The investors had grown impatient due to the film production company defaulting on its secured promissory note and the release dates that were not met, and the film wasn't finished until late 2009. Finally, in 2011, the film was auctioned for $2.5 million. StoryArk investors had ultimately invoked a clause in their contract that allowed the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, which had insured FoodFight!, to release the film as inexpensively and quickly as possible.

The film was quietly shoved onto DVD and finally released in 2012, although the film had a limited cinema release in the UK, Russia, and Dubai. Overall, the movie had a budget of $32 million.

In 2014, it was said by an unknown user in a Reddit post that the "hard drives" containing the film were never stolen but were actually in a vaulted server room and one of the people who had access to it deliberately deleted the film.

However, a recent fan-made documentary on YouTube by the name of Rotten: Behind a Foodfight revealed that both stories were false as the film was just restarted with motion-capture and the original 2002 version was just a reel created to show to film studios at the time, and that many people who worked on the film revealed the truth behind the film's production along with some unshown footage that hadn't been seen before and there were also plans for spin-offs revealed by the staff themselves, and that some newsreels from CNN about the film which were lost for a long time were shown in the documentary itself, and that Larry had been lying to the public about the film and had mistreated many of the people working on the film and treated the film like a live-action movie, which caused production to be a disaster for the people involved, and the film ended up being in the hands of Fireman's Fund in 2008 and was released in an unfinished state.

Why It Goes Bad

1. First and foremost, it is a $32 million film with visuals that look worse than computer-generated animations from the 1980s and 1990s, with creepy character designs and absolutely terrible and atrociously bad animation. Not helping matters is the use of motion capture and Looney Tunes squash-and-stretch style of animation simultaneously, despite the two not blending well together.
   • At that point, the animation in the final product was a huge downgrade from the original 2002 reel, most of which were replaced with motion capture as a deal with Lionsgate and IBM.
   • The motion-capture arm acting and facial expressions are terrible, with rumors mentioning that the film was animated using 3ds Max and Maya (the truth wasn't much better, as the technology used had limitations that required the actor to stare directly at the capture equipment and not move their head). Particularly, when Doctor Si Nustrix is talking to Dex, viewers can see in the background that Dan looks like he's spazzing out; another instance is the fact that the soldiers in the Brand X army constantly appear to be throwing their hands around while marching.
   • So many animation errors and clipping objects are present.
   • The lip-syncing is completely off-track.
   • The designs for the characters look overly revolting, particularly the ones for the shopper lady, Mr. Clipboard, Daredevil Dan, the unnamed toddler and his mother, Kaptain Krispy, Brand X Lunch lady, Cheasel T. Weasel, and Sunshine Goodness. They are also downgraded from the original models.
     • Sunshine Goodness is supposed to represent the Sun-Maid Girl, but instead, she was designed to resemble a humanoid cat. She also has such bad eye contact with other characters to the point where it may take some time for a viewer to realize she isn't supposed to be blind.
     • Cheasel looks like he's made of feces.
     • The worst offender of a character design is Priscilla after being defeated by Sunshine Goodness. Even the characters were disgusted after seeing her appearance.
   • The splatter effects look like they were taken from a royalty-free effects site and always appear regardless of the type of food used, which is nonsensical, like how a tiny watermelon releases a huge explosion, for example.
   • The reason for all these issues is due to the animation being developed by Xing Xing Digital, who also worked on the early dark age seasons (6-10) of Fireman Sam.
2. The color palette is over-saturated and disgusting to look at, to the point that it looks like a terrible-looking PS2 or Xbox game released in 2002. The 2002 trailer had a better color palette than the final product.
3. The sound-mixing and voice acting are mediocre, as the actors either phone in their performances, overact ridiculously, or both, clearly knowing that nobody would stop them.
   • Occasionally, there are usually voice clips that are used from early versions of the film due to the film being rushed in production, and they often happen out of nowhere, and this was spotted by Cynical Reviews who was baffled by this and joked that they must've been recorded on a phone from the 90s, making this film an oddball when it comes to audio.
4. The antagonist faction of the film, Brand X, was portrayed as Nazis and Nazi Germany, which is just pure laziness, made worse with how blatant and on-the-nose the Nazi imagery is.
5. Most of the intended brand advertisers pulled out when it became clear the film would be a disaster and were replaced with ersatz versions of brand icons. This appears to be a rather strange attempt at revenge.
6. Most of the intended brand characters are not used or widely known outside the United States, which would have limited the film's international appeal in a scenario where it wasn't awful.
7. The characters are either annoying, cringe-inducing, or both.
   • Dex Dogtective is pretty unlikable and has a habit of saying food-related puns that can get annoying at times, and his obsession with Sunshine Goodness comes off as more creepy than cute.
   • Daredevil Dan is easily the most offensive character in the film since he's depicted as a racist black stereotype and most of his jokes involve him being black or being made out of chocolate, which isn't funny and is offensive to black people in general.
   • Lady X is a carbon copy of Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit since she is only used as a sexual figure whereas Jessica, while sexy, actually had a character and was a caring wife for Roger, and Lady X is the main villain as a twist doesn't work because the scene where Mr Clipboard is introduced made it way too obvious that Lady X is the main villain since the man moves in a very disturbing way and looks like a robot, which makes it obvious that she's the villain and her twist fall flat.
   • Sunshine Goodness, while likable, is rarely in the film at all and only randomly appears in the climax just at the last second just to serve the role of a Damsel in Distress due to her being recalled by Brand X, making her role in the film seem pretty pointless and trivial.
   • Cheasel T. Weasel is easily the worst character in the entire movie since he is very poorly-animated and is extremely creepy towards Dex and occasionally stalks him at times, and Larry's performance as the character is just awful. His role switch from a minor villain to a supporting hero feels forced since he only kills the Brand X Lunch Lady by the orders of Dex himself, and it's clear that Larry had a creepy obsession with the character, since the last scene he's in, he says "Cheasel T. Weasel Rocks" which makes the character come off as horrifying and a meer reflective image of Kasanoff himself.
   • Most of the other side characters rarely do that much in the film, mostly to say awful catchphrases, or in the case of Polar the Penguin, constantly say he feels cold despite the city itself mostly being of warm temperature, making a majority feel useless in the end and they only become important by the climax, which drags on too long.
8. Poor attempts at humor, with some coming off as cringe-worthy:
   • There is so much gross-out humor:
     • In one scene. Doctor Si Nustrix sneezes and gets Dex covered in snot.
     • During the beginning, a frog king farts. This goes the same for a disgusting-looking cheese mascot, who farts at Lieutenant X.
   • Dex's constant food-related puns, with the most infamous example being "Let's strawberry jam out of here!" Other notable examples include "Time to banana-split out of my club!", "I don't think I can cut the mustard", "How the ho-hos can this be happening?", and "My problems are just a hill of coffee beans".
   • Other jokes in the film are poorly formulated, as it takes serious thought to even understand that they are jokes. One notable example is at the beginning of the film where Dex is dealing with a rat who is constantly referred to as "Fat Cat" aside from one instance where he is referred to as "Fat Cat Burglar", which only makes sense if the viewer connects it to the fact that he had stolen a basket of kittens.
9. False advertising: On the DVD cover, the main characters are pushed to the lower-left corner and, instead, side characters are showcased; as a result, anyone looking at it would think that the aforementioned side characters are the main characters just by looking at the DVD cover. Also, two of the listed mascots, Chef Boyardee and Chiquita Banana, don't even appear in the film, with Chiquita being replaced by an Expy (Lola Fruitola) and Chef Boyardee being mentioned. Not helping is that the visuals on the DVD cover are better than in the actual film, which would deceive anyone looking at it.
   • The DVD cover, while slightly better than the actual film, is also a carbon copy of the box art of Over the Hedge.
   • The cast list is also dishonest, as the original characters are the ones with the most screen time, not the real-world mascots.
     • Another instance of false advertising is that Chester the Cheetah from Cheetos appears in the trailer (though the trailer is old and had better animation), yet he isn't in the final film.
10. Some scenes reference Gone with the Wind and Casablanca, which children would normally be unable to understand. It also plays out more as if the creators simply couldn't be bothered to come up with a scene of their own.
11. A film intended to be about product placement becomes more than a little pointless since the majority of the product mascots in the movie aren't real.
12. The movie is littered with numerous illogical scenes:
    • For one, the Ikes use lightning rods made of aluminum foil to divert lightning away from their buildings and destroy Brand X's main fortress. But the realms of logic would dictate that the civilian buildings be destroyed since none of the lightning rods installed have copper wires that lead to a second rod buried in the ground. Just having the conductor on the roof would result in the lightning strike being transmitted throughout the building, possibly setting it ablaze.
    • Dex trips up Lieutenant X by pulling a rug from beneath him, yet Sunshine doesn't even move despite the chair she is tied to also being on top of that same rug. She also somehow manages to untie herself from the chair.
13. The climactic battle of the film goes on for thirty minutes, consisting mostly of the food fight between the Ikes and the armies of Brand X, complete with constantly recycled shots.
14. The basic premise doesn't work, since it isn't anything a child would have imagined. Something like "Where do the monsters in my closet live?" (Monsters, Inc.), "What do my toys do when I'm away?" (Toy Story), "Why do I have feelings and how do they work?" (Inside Out), "Do robots feel emotion, like love? (WALL-E), "What do superheroes do when they're not doing their daily life of crime-fighting?" (The Incredibles), or "What does Santa do when it isn't Christmas?" (The Santa Clause) is a solid question, but a premise that is essentially "What does Ronald McDonald do when McDonald's closes?" is not, because children know he was never there in the first place.
15. The internal rules of the universe are extremely unclear, particularly with regards to where Ikes come from, what the relationship between an Ike and its product is, and what everyone is doing in this one specific supermarket. Obvious questions like what goes on in other supermarkets are never answered. Neither is it established how Lady X could have constructed a semi-functional robot man and created an entire range of Brand X products, aside from some vague mumbling about Sunshine Goodness' "essence".
16. Bizarre uses of store-related terminology:
    • "Brand X" usually refers to a store brand product. Selling someone else's label is not the same thing. The interaction between Mr. Clipboard and Leonard is also like how sellers of big-name branded products treat store brands (demanding certain numbers of facings of their products, even if it removes sections of the store's range entirely), not the other way around.
    • The death of an Ike is said to cause their product to "expire," but that would only work if the death of the Ike causes time to advance to the point of the expiration date, and all products of an entire brand will not have the same expiration date.
    • "Recalling" a product is also used as a way to remove an Ike from the store but recalls usually affect defective or contaminated batches of a product, not the brand associated with it.
    • Furthermore, one corporation cannot recall a product belonging to another corporation; they can only recall products that they produced themselves.
17. The film has a lack of knowledge about animals; for example, Dex is seen eating raisins in several instances throughout the film, even though raisins are poisonous to dogs.
    • Additionally, in the opening of the film, Dex and Sunshine have a fancy dinner where the table is covered with grapes, a carton of milk, and ice cream with fudge topping, even though raisins and milk are also poisonous to cats as Sunshine is a humanoid cat.
18. Some scenes have explicit sexual references, innuendos, and double-entendres that are just way too inappropriate for children. Sure, while some movies like Shrek have their dirty humor, at least they didn't go too far with it. This movie, however, has loads of it....
    • During a scene where Daredevil Dan is flying his plane, he spots his love interest Sweetcakes, and calls out to her from the air saying, "Nice package, how about some chocolate frosting?" Later on in the film, he laments about how he didn't get to play "Lick the Icing" with Sweetcakes, obviously referencing sexual activity.
    • Lady X's basic design appears way too sexual and inappropriate for a film aimed at children.
    • When Dex and Lady X are dancing, the latter tells him that she wants to "scrub [his] bubbles", which implies she wants to fondle Dex's testicles.
    • In that same dancing scene, Dex says to Lady X; "There are some stains you can never wash out", presumably referring to semen.
    • At one point during the climactic battle, it looks as if a bunch of airplanes had been launched right out of Lady X's crotch, which is disturbing.
    • When Lieutenant X mentions violating curfew, he says he loves "anything to do with violation," possibly referencing sexual assault.
    • There is a scene in the middle of the final fight between Dex and Lady X where Daredevil Dan asks, "Are those melons real?", upon noticing Lady X is about to throw a pair of watermelons at Dex while having them suspiciously positioned near her breasts; Dan is implied to be mistaking the watermelons for Lady X's breasts.
    • Before Lieutenant X dies, his last words are "I think I just wet myself. It feels rather nice...", obviously referencing an ejaculation.
    • Aside from all the sexual innuendos, there is even a drug reference in the form of a passing mention of "Dr. Feelgood", which is a slang term for heroine.
    • Infamously, there's the relationship between both Dan and Vlad, which openly mocks gay couples as Vlad acts sexually aggressive towards Dan and tries to groom him as Vlad is somehow attracted by Dan being made out of chocolate and he even makes sexual remarks about Dan like how he wants him on his back, likely a reference of wanting to be raped by that same person, which is extremely creepy and shows how perverted Larry Kasanoff truly was when making this film.
    • There are also highly inappropriate implications of bestiality in a movie aimed at children.
      • Dex, a humanoid dog, is seen dancing with Lady X in one scene and sniffing her hair.
      • An alien lusts over Lady X in one scene. And while it wasn't exactly an "animal", it was still an example of unsettling and inappropriate interspecies romance.
19. On multiple occasions, the film comes across as racist.
    • Several characters are racial stereotypes: particularly, Doctor Si Nustrix has stereotypical Jewish mannerisms, a stereotypical Jewish accent, and a gigantic nose; and Daredevil Dan is an African American stereotype.
    • There is also a series of very off-color racist jokes related to Daredevil Dan being a chocolate mascot voiced by a black man.
20. Larry Kasanoff had no experience as a director (although he was an experienced producer with True Lies, the strongest string to his bow) and knew very little about computer animation, leading to scenes being redone repeatedly.
    • Furthermore, as stated by YouTube critic AniMat during his discussion on the history of the film, Kasanoff being on a different book than the remainder of the crew and his lack of experience meant that he had no idea what he was doing. His decision to become the director was the triggering of nearly all of the film's subsequent production problems.
21. Some scenes in the film serve no purpose other than to pad out the runtime.
22. The film has an offensive moral of "never trust ugly people" as many of the ugly characters are depicted as being evil and the more attractive characters are viewed as good and pure, with the film making fun of Lady X's original form, Priscilla, due to how ugly she is and often call her a prune because of how gross she is to most people, which is proven even further by the fact that the film uses Lady X as the main villain who is a sexy model that is portrayed like a Hitler-like figure but is actually ugly in reality when Sunshine Goodness gives her the upper-cut and transforms back into her original self, which is actually the film saying that "hot people can only be evil if they have an ugly person inside of them all along" as an excuse for Lady X to be portrayed as the main villain of the film, and the way how many of the attractive women are used in the film are mostly through sex jokes, bestiality complications, being portrayed as Mary Sues or have no purpose other than to act sexy and attractive. In other words, the film is literally sexist towards women and encourages discrimination towards disabled people to children (it's intended audience) who are known for their conditions that badly affect their bodies and mental health (as well as physical health too) which affect their appearance and how they act as people, as they should be respected as normally as regular people are, and since a character like Mr. Clipboard resembles a disabled character, it makes the movie feel tasteless and disrespectful towards the concept of humanity as a result of Larry Kasanoff having a creepy obsession with women and having a terrible taste of humor overall.
23. Plot-Holes everywhere in the entire film. Numerous examples include:
    • Sunshine Goodness is recalled after she went to check on Dan after he crashed his plane an hour after her dinner with Dex, despite Brand X not arriving at that time.
    • The reveal of Lady X being Priscilla in disguise and why she built Mr. Clipboard and managed to change appearance, which is never explained at all aside from her mentioning she went to Brazil for plastic surgery despite being the size of an action figure and the humans in the film not being the smartest people out there, making this twist very confusing.
    • Apparently, Cheasel survives falling off a high building and getting crushed by a ball from a construction vehicle, yet the other food mascots get killed realistically by Brand X, which makes no sense and makes Cheasel seem immortal compared to the other characters, proving that the film suffers from the worst logic imaginable and that Larry had favoritism over Cheasel himself.
    • It's never explained how Dex and Dan are actively alive during the day when the supermarket is open, why the humans aren't concerned about them being alive and how they're interacting with the environment in the slightest.
    • For whatever reason, a sock randomly appears in the heat dryer despite neither Leonard nor Brand X acknowledging that it was there and not even putting it there in the first place, since it's only used as a plot device for Dan and Dex to escape their certain doom from being melted and burned to the ground meaning that it was nothing but pure luck for the two to escape the burning dryer and save themselves since "socks always escape from the dryer" according to Dex and so it does, making this plot-hole actually affect the entire film as a whole.
      • Also worth noting that the sock appeared out of nowhere, making it clear that it only appeared just to move the plot forward, and makes the movie seem more confusing in general.
24. The film features shameless product placement from a few real-life food brands that are only in the film as a marketing tool and aren't really significant to the film's story in anyway. Most of them are only used as comic reliefs or are only used for quick cameos that leave a lot to be desired for a film about food brand mascots coming to life, since the original version of the film was going to feature way more real-life food brands when it was in production during the early 2000s, which received negative feedback from the public who thought the idea of a film featuring recognizable food mascots came off as blatant advertising and considering that the use of product placement in films has been criticized by many at the time and even still being criticized to this day. Since most of the mascots aren't well-known outside of the United States and aren't even relevant anymore, it makes the film come off as outdated and irrelevant by today's standards and even the time the film came out in 2012, since the food brand mascots used in the film had fallen off the mainstream at that time, and since the DVD cover literally shows the brand mascots on the front center and overshadows both Dex and Sunshine in the background of the DVD cover, it becomes more obvious that the film was doomed from the start and never had a chance to be any good at all thanks to the troubled production and Larry sabotaging the project just for money, making this film one of the biggest cashgrabs of the 2010s.
    • It also becomes more ironic since the film has the same premise as Toy Story but with food mascots and whereas the former film used toys as a source of nostalgia and worldbuilding for its sequels, this film, on the other hand, uses food mascots as a marketing stunt and how they are used in the film is disrespectful since some of them are used for sexual jokes or are just straight-up mocked in general, which is poor use of the brand mascots overall and it makes this all clear that the film handles them very poorly. Since Larry paid a lot of money for numerous food products to be featured in the film and later make the film into an actual franchise, it puts a very bad image on the film and the YouTube documentary "ROTTEN: Behind the Foodfight" shows this perfectly and why the film was in bad hands overall.
25. Overall, the film was only made as a cash-grab and proves how terrible Larry Kasanoff is at filmmaking with how he handled the film's production and that he only cared about money and that's it, which failed since it was in production for over 10 years and suffered from executive meddling, which by the release of the film, it resulted in the film is far worse than when it started and gave Threshold Entertainment a negative reputation, which was made worse by the negative reception of Bobbleheads: The Movie and the recent documentary of the film that showed how terrible the production was and that the film was doomed from the start, making the film feel more like a corporate product and not an actual film.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The soundtrack and songs are decent. They're arguably the best part of the movie.
2. The idea of having a whole roster of recognizable food brand mascots in one film was interesting and had potential, though this wasn’t executed well, and many of the mascots aren’t well-known outside of the United States.
3. Dex Dogtective's design is decent, at least compared to most of the other characters.
4. Mr. Clipboard is such a stupid character, yet so good at the same time.
5. The original 2002 reel, while still not good, was far superior to the final product.
6. Jeff Bennett is decent as Lieutenant X. There are some other decent voice performances as well.
7. Some scenes are so stupid they can be funny.
   • The same can be said about the Latin American dub, which is considered a "So Bad It's Good" due to the (presumably) effortless work behind it.
8. Depending on your view, this can be seen as a "so bad it's good" movie due to how bad it is.

Reception

FoodFight! has been universally panned by critics, the internet, and audiences alike. It is often noted as "the worst animated film of all time" (yes, even more so than The Emoji Movie and Norm of the North), and even one of the worst films of all time due to the production, being chock-filled with innuendo, awful animation, and a terrible plot. It currently has a 1.6/10 on IMDb and a 10% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Not only that, but it has also only made $73,706 on a budget of $65 million, resulting in it being such a massive flop at the box office it may even be considered one of the biggest box office bombs in history.

One of the animators gave it a negative review on Amazon, and had this to say: "I actually worked on this movie for a bit. It was one of my first jobs in the industry and let me tell you, if you think it was a train wreck viewing, you should have seen how terrible it was to work on it. The sad truth is there were plenty of talented people working there. many of those people moved on to major studios in both film, TV, and games. The bottom line is the director, Larry Kasanoff is a talent-less, classless scumbag that should be banned from Hollywood until the end of time. All of the inappropriate innuendos are a direct product of his "creative hand". I cannot tell you how many times this moron derailed production with his brainless input. It literally has cost the studio millions of dollars. They eventually stepped in and removed him from the project. Unfortunately, that was a decade and millions of dollars late. I am so ashamed of this movie that I have completely left working there off of my resume. On behalf of the many artists that have had the dubious distinction of working on this dumpster fire, I apologize to all of humanity for our part in this."

External links

• Foodfight! at the Internet Movie Database
• Foodfight! on Rotten Tomatoes
• Foodfight! on Letterboxd

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