Mean Bread's Totally Bitchin' Adventure

This review contains some spoilers.

It has been a while since we have had a proper and decent comedy released. The last one I can think of was posted all the way back in November last year, which was James Quicksell's Moderately Confused. Stepan and Ferret have finally broken this long drought with a hilarious, highly-anticipated short film, Mean Bread's Totally Bitchin' Adventure. The movie may be less than ten minutes long, but I can assure you that, chances are, you will be thoroughly entertained and amused the whole way through, and that you will have so much fun watching it. The main character comes in the unlikely form of a piece of toast. Now, get this, it can also talk, cook, and live a normal life like the rest of us, as well as having the ability to fly. In addition, it has eyes, a mouth, and most important, eyebrows to express himself. Already, surely you can feel the awesomeness oozing out of this movie? If not, you don't deserve to be here, but read on while I continue to explain why it's such a great movie and how its original, witty concept is backed up with many humorous jokes and the stunning use of v3DMM.

Like most cartoons you may watch, Mean Bread’s story is remarkably simple. It goes like this: the toast breaks his alarm clock; the toast goes to buy a new one at the shop; the toast bumps into the thief; the thief takes his beloved eyebrows and money. Yet somehow I reacted like this: "Hahaha, nooo! How is he supposed to express himself now? Haha, damn you thief! How could you! Hahaha." Clearly, one thing that Mean Bread does excel in by far is its humour, and the short film was never ever short of it. Some laughs probably seemed a little bit forced, but for the majority of jokes, they were very laughable. The whole idea about the importance of Mean Bread's eyebrows and having them stolen by the thief was hilarious, and it opened up to many more laughs, with the jokes continually coming right until the movie ended. Look out for the final showdown between Mean Bread and the thief; it's both funny and entertaining, and you couldn't ask more from it.

Just a few days ago I gave some praise to Magocs' Desert Eagle for using v3DMM well. Now enter Mean Bread's Totally Bitchin' Adventure. The way v3DMM is used here is staggering and easily beats Desert Eagle in terms of getting the most out of it. In every scene we see v3DMM being used, and each scene looks amazingly unique. Even to this date, you see released movies with poor scenery, with no side tables, picture frames, flowers, or windows even, yet on the other side of the scale, you get Mean Bread's own, very different style, undoubtedly one of the big strong points of the movie, and the two directors have actually put in the effort to fill the surroundings with objects and make the scenes look more complete. It might still be a little on the simple side in a fair few places, but its unique v3DMM-influenced style more than makes up for it. The star of the film himself, Mean Bread, also looks awesome, from the eyebrows to its toastly shape, and he was animated very fluently. His low, comedic voice (by Russ Stepan) suited the piece of bread suitably and it was synched kind of closely to the movement of the mouth. The other voices, although not as important, are fittingly great too and should be given credit, especially the voice of the thief.

I admit that the humour might not be for everyone, but you're only going to be wasting seven or eight minutes of your time, if you're in the minority who will dislike it. For the rest of you though, this is pure gold, from start to finish, and even though it's too short to make a bigger impact and be labelled as a memorable classic, you won't forget this for a long time, most likely because of its many laughable jokes and its wonderful, cartoony style. It's hard to imagine how this will be topped for comedy this year, and here's to hoping that Stepan and Ferret team up again and make a longer, and just as hilarious, sequel. There's no doubt that right at this moment, Mean Bread's Totally Bitchin' Adventure is the sparkling star of the 2005 Summer Film Festival.

Score: 83/100