‘Frylock is dead to me… I’ll never speak with him again…’
Aqua Teen Hunger Force came along at just the right time for me. Just as the show was weird and surreal, nonsensical and often frustrating, so was my life at that moment. Now that things have settled down for me, revisiting ATHF is an odd experience. I can still enjoy the antics of Master Shake, Meatwad and Frylock, but the whole thing makes me feel a little uneasy. In true Aqua Teen style, this second movie adaptation of the popular Adult Swim TV show is absolutely bonkers…
In this paragraph, I would normally convey the plot. Here, to quote Aqua Teen favourite Carl Brutananadilewski – “It doesn’t matter… none of this matters”. And that’s the chilling truth. While Plantasm is often hilarious and always interesting, it is also maddeningly inconsequential. It is this lack of substance and knack for self-awareness that makes ATHF so damn compelling in the first place.
Barely a film at all, the action is often interrupted by the Mooninites (two small aliens made up of a single pixel) berating the audience, Plantasm is everything one might expect from a film that features a mad scientist named Elmer. Its anarchic brand of absurdism goes fast and hard before imploding in on itself in a spasm of nonsense.
Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm will delight long-time fans and baffle everyone else. Surely everyone can enjoy Run the Jewels’ excellent theme song, however.
