CM McCambridge
Since 2007, Adult Swim has released five films for its own existing intellectual properties. With what appears to be no intention of releasing any more, it seems apt to revisit all of them as part of a larger whole, pulling together their themes into one cohesive piece.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters
The first of the Adult Swim films was Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters (2007, dir. Matt Maiellaro, Dave Willis) part of the existing series Aqua Teen Hunger Force. While ostensibly being one long episode, it does feature some slightly improved animation quality and sets up a unifying theme for all of the animated features to follow.
Following the gang as they stop a robot apocalypse caused by exercise equipment, Movie Film really focuses on where the group came from, with Frylock’s (Carey Means) fractured memories of his creation at the forefront. Setting the stage for The Venture Bros. and Metalocalpyse, there’s a reuniting of family at the end, providing an answer to some fundamental questions that fans of the series have had since the beginning.
A large part of the film centers around the characters, particularly Frylock, figuring out where they came from and discovering their family. Even if this only truly comes to a head at the very end of the film, it still sets up a bit of a running theme for all of the animated films on this list. Every single animated Adult Swim film does, in some way, center around finding family and loved ones. While this theme likely was not intentional, it still manages to wrap everything up in a nice bow when looked at as a whole.
With Movie Film being largely paced as one long episode, it struggles with its extra runtime in a way that the next Aqua Teen film would not. The film itself states that this is fundamentally a cash grab, but in reality, it appears to be the full experience of watching a few episodes of the series, with things moving at an often incomprehensible pace between stilted jokes and the actual plot. That is to say, it is exactly what it sets out to be, knowing their audience’s tastes intimately.
Mister America
Perhaps, if this were written a year ago, Mister America (2019, dir. Eric Notarnicola) could be considered a time capsule of a past administration. Instead, it shows itself as a nearly frightening examination of a charlatan-turned-politician who narrowly avoids prosecution and runs, out of spite, for the prosecuting district attorney.
Following On Cinema At The Cinema, the mockumentary Mister America follows Tim Heidecker (Tim Heidecker) as he attempts to run for district attorney of San Bernardino County, California. Running the campaign from a hotel room with a single person on his team––the only juror to find him not guilty in his murder trial in On Cinema—Heidecker hits the streets himself, running against the sitting district attorney, Vincent Rosetti (Don Pecchia), and trying to paint his opponent as corrupt while running from his own past.
Throughout the campaign, Heidecker is constantly being caught in lies, all pertaining to the events of On Cinema, and the premise is directly shown to be copying 1976’s The Shaggy D.A. (dir. Robert Stevenson). Gregg Turkington (Gregg Turkington) says this directly, citing the parallels and making it clear that Mister America is in some ways an incredibly loose reimagining of the original.
Given the impossible task of following up the trial of Tim Heidecker in On Cinema, Mister America feels like a drawn-out Tim & Eric sketch that simply fails to land in its first half. While the latter half of the film begins to come into its own, depicting Heidecker falling into alcoholism and the same drug that put him on trial for murder, it comes only after a bizarre and dry first half that simply fails to land until it’s too late. Once Heidecker begins his downward spiral, Mister America becomes a scathing critique of modern American politics and the theatrics involved.
Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm
Unlike Movie Film before it, Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm (2022, dir. Matt Maiellaro, Dave Willis) comes across less as one long episode of the series, and more as a film with the breathing room to truly let its jokes span out and land, taking advantage of the extra runtime. It also began the soft trilogy of animated Adult Swim films revisiting series that had ended, followed by The Venture Bros and Metalocalpyse.
Plantasm presents a critique of modern American consumerism, with Frylock working at Amazon analog Amazin, a company known for its employee abuse and ability to ship nearly any item right to a customer’s door (it’s not exactly subtle). Opening with two of the film’s three main characters being homeless isn’t just for a gag, but is rather emblematic of the series itself, no longer having a home on Adult Swim. By the end, with the day saved and the gang back together, not only do our characters return to living together, but the series itself returned for another season.
As the plant seeds in Amazin boxes take root and begin to take over the world, the focus gradually shifts away from the plot and into the reuniting of the team, placing emphasis on both the title and the main characters’ matching tattoos—it truly is Aqua Teen Forever. Following Mister America, a more direct satire, it was refreshing to see Plantasm focus less on plainly satirizing Amazon and instead use that as a means of inciting its plot—something it would share with the later Venture Bros. film.
In a lot of ways, Plantasm is an attempt to really improve on some of the weaker points of the first film. The pacing is much stronger, the jokes give themselves more time to play out, and the satire is more distinct. Whereas Movie Film ran as if it was one long episode, Plantasm ran as a film proper, changing its tone to better fit itself into a longer runtime.
The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart
The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023, dir. Jackson Publick/Chris McCulloch) is in a bit of an odd space on this list, being a season of television that had to be condensed down into an 84-minute film. Unlike the other films on this list, all of which seemed to be written as one cohesive piece, Baboon Heart instead was put together from a full season of television after the series was renewed in 2018 and infamously canceled in 2020.
It’s tempting to say that the film’s scale prevents it from simply being one long episode, but in a series that switches between the incredibly intimate and the large-scale plot-heavy specials, Baboon Heart feels more like the latter, wrapping up every existing plot thread with only a few chances to let the characters really sit down and talk. That being said, the intimate moments we do get really seem to wrap up some elements of the characters’ dynamics with each other. While the film lacks the balance the series struck, it manages to fit quite a bit into its runtime, while still sticking the landing at the very end.
Along with Metalocalypse, which would see its film released only a month later, Baboon Heart really stands out as being a film that changes the status quo of its series rather than a standalone film that can be enjoyed by audiences separately. This duo of films wrapping up plot points from their respective series leaves a bittersweet taste; it’s surely no coincidence that the final two Adult Swim films are the very same that wrap up two beloved series.
Despite being enveloped in its own lore and loose plot threads, Baboon Heart manages to keep its pace, letting its first act really introduce us to where the characters are now. A weaker film may have rushed into its own lore, starting at a breakneck pace to introduce all of its concepts at once––more on that later.
Maybe it’s due to my own familiarity with the series, but it feels as if the film takes time in its opening scenes to gently reestablish what’s happened up to this point, with characters very plainly stating their motivations as we first see them. Hank (Chris McCulloch) wants to find himself; Dean (Michael Sinterniklaas) wants to find Hank; and The Monarch (Chris McCulloch) wants to arch Dr. Venture (James Urbaniak) ahead of his new product launch. While each of the aforementioned character motivations is clearly stated, they’re not fundamentally any different from where things left off in the series, making the distinct point to give audiences a simultaneous refresher and introduction.
Baboon Heart’s satire of Apple fits hand in hand with Plantasm’s satire of Amazon; in neither case is the film itself largely concerned with satirizing, and instead uses it as a means of inciting the plot. Much like Movie Film and Plantasm before it, Baboon Heart reunites its key characters with their family, answering a couple of key questions that fans have had since day one along the way. After nearly two decades, fans finally got to learn why The Monarch hates Dr. Venture, and who the mother of Hank and Dean really is—questions that some believed would never be answered.
Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar
There’s no way around it: Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar (2023, dir. Brendon Small) is one for the fans. Starting right off the bat with lore sans recap and picking up shortly after the series left off a decade prior, Doomstar wastes no time at all before diving into its plot proper.
Much like the films before it, Doomstar places a large focus on family, be it found or otherwise, and manages to tie this theme back to the other Adult Swim films as well. The crux of the plot revolves around the “Great Reuniting” and comes across as the reuniting of the series and its fans, a group that the show would often poke more than their fair share of fun at.
Akin to Plantasm and Baboon Heart before it, Doomstar doesn’t feel like one long episode but rather a true film in the Metalocalypse canon, with all of the scale such a thing demands. There is no shortage of large-scale plot, with the entire world at stake as the titular Metalocalypse begins in full.
While Nathan (Brendon Small) struggles to write the Song of Salvation, the film strays from the developed Adult Swim pattern by not introducing a new villain and instead using Murderface (Tommy Blacha) to undermine him, all while under the control of Salacia (Mark Hamill) as the primary antagonistic force for much of the runtime. By using these existing characters rather than introducing new ones, Doomstar feels even more like a love letter to the series, playing with established dynamics and saving some of its runtime from needing to tee up introductions.
At the end of the day, Doomstar is all about reuniting and finding family again, even if said family is one that you’ve had already. In a lot of ways, the final scenes of Baboon Heart seem to set this up, emphasizing that a person chooses their family in the same way that Nathan seems to choose the band to be his.
As previously mentioned, this one is for the fans, and it’s written all over the film itself. The fans are the ones demanding more from the band, and it’s made clear right away that “We have these fans to thank for all of this.” In a way, Doomstar nicely wraps up why each of these final three films, in particular, were made: for the fans of each series who never gave up hope that their favorite shows would be given a proper ending.
