The fourth (and, at time of writing, final) Futurama movie is the one that cements the standard for the collection of DVD's by making a majority of the four. Having enjoyed Bender's Game more than the other two films, I was hoping that the third film had been a turn away from the lesser first two. Instead though Wild Green Yonder is more like the first two films in that it is not funny enough to last 90 minutes and suffers from a total overdose of plot.
Now I'm not suggesting that the third film was brilliant, but just that it seemed to keep all the characters in the same plot thread and also helped itself immensely by being consistently funny so I was likely to be thinking about the problems it had (and it did). Wild Green Yonder does not do this. First and foremost is the problem that, while it has good laughs, there is not enough funny material to spread across 90 minutes. With Futurama the plots have always been a bit secondary and the episodes worked off quick-fire comedy and asides. 90 minutes means you have to have a plot and cannot easily rely on quick-fire comedy as easily unless you really get it right (a reason why I worry about the Arrested Development movie). This film doesn't have enough comedy in it to keep the viewer laughing to the point where it is the film's "all".
The writers have tried to do the plot in such a way to create lots of smaller situations though, seemingly in order to allow for lots of gags and jokes. The problem is that, without the laughter to cover this, it leaves the plot fragmented and really messy. As with the other films, the characters are split up across several different threads that kind-of all move in the same direction to the same place but just makes the film feel like a mess with no flow or motion. It is fun to see as many of the characters as we do but by ramming them all into the film it partially causes this in my opinion Bender's Game is the only one that makes this business work simply because it kept the characters more or less together in the various sections of the film. Here they are fragmented and it doesn't work as well.
The look of the film is as good as the usual Futurama standard and I enjoyed the different things they did with the titles, credits etc. The voice work is also good and, when anyone in the main cast is given a good line or catchphrase they generally nail it with their delivery. The guest voices are more mixed with most good but some dialling it in. Overall Wild Green Yonder is a solid film that, like the others, will mostly please fans without being good enough to win over casual viewers. It is funny but not enough for the running time and the plot threads are messy, distracting and fragmenting. I still quite enjoyed it but it was only "OK" and not good enough to hide the problems even as I was watching it.
