Inanimate Insanity: Movie Madness

Inanimate Insanity: Movie Madness is a 2017 American flash-animated comedy film based on the popular YouTube web series, Inanimate Insanity. It centers around MePhone 4 realizes he can make more money by being a director and takes the job, also signing the contestants up to be actors in the process. However, Taco has other plans for the crew. The film was animated by Clearwater Animation, produced by AnimationEpic, and released by Columbia Pictures on April 21, 2017 in IMAX, 3D, and 2D to positive reviews and box office success. A sequel was released on March 8, 2019.

Plot
5 years after Taco’s loss in season 1, she’s still plotting her revenge, with her ”friend”, Microphone. She suggests a plan to Taco to mind control MePhone 4 and the others and worship her as their ruler. She agrees to the plan and starts building the device to mind control everyone.

Meanwhile, the contestants are hanging out at Hotel OJ. MePhone 4 is watching TV when a help wanted ad from Wagner Sisters Pictures for a director interrupts the show. He isn’t interested until it mentions you can get paid $1,000 for the job. Having big bucks in his eyes, he takes the contestants to the film studio and applies for the job, all the while signing the contestants up to be actors. Ecstatic, everyone starts thinking of an idea for a theatrical production. OJ suggests a comedy, Salt suggests a romantic drama, Paintbrush suggests a rock opera, and the others suggest many more. Since nobody can decide which genre to choose. MePhone 4 chooses to direct an action film with the title, ''Raging Inferno. ''Everyone agrees and decides to make the the film.

Back in Taco’s lair, she starts constructing, what she likes to call, the Super Controllio-Mindovio 9000™. After 8 hours of work, she finally finishes the device and configures it with her Taco-Bot’s cannons. She sets of to the film studio with Microphone by her side. Meanwhile, in the studio, filming for Raging Inferno had begun. Knife plays the main character, Alan Wentworth and Apple as his wife, Marie Wentworth. MePhone 4 feels the movie isn’t looking too good so far, so he moves on to an action scene, with Trophy as the villain. MePhone 4 realizes that being a director isn’t as easy as he thought. He attempts to cancel the film, but Knife stops him in his tracks, telling him he won’t get the $1,000 unless he makes the film. Agreeing with Knife, he resumes production.

Four days later, Taco arrives at the studio with the robot, which frightens everyone outside the studio. She shoots mind control waves at the all of film crews. She tells them to track down MePhone 4 and the conestants. The crew has finished the movie and post-production. They go to distribute the film to theaters when they are stopped by the mind controlled film crews. Cornered, Paintbrush spots a golf cart. OJ advises everyone get in, and it leads to a chase scene. After the chase scene, Taco’s robot destroys the golf cart and kidnaps OJ and MePhone 4. She straps them to a watertower along with a bomb to destroy the two and the studio. Apple unstraps MePhone 4 and OJ, but is too late to stop the bomb, destroying the watertower which floods the studio. This ends up electrocuting the robot and blowing Taco and Microphone into the sky. The crew is rewarded for them saving everybody and Raging Inferno is released in theaters to critical acclaim and humongous box office success. MePhone 4 gets paid the $1,000 and wins the “Best Movie of the Year” award, ending the film.

Voice Cast

 * Mark Katz as MePhone 4
 * Taylor Grodin as OJ and Paintbrush
 * Adam Katz as Apple, Test Tube, Nickle, and Baseball
 * Dee Cashin as Marshmallow
 * Alexa Chapman as Salt and Pepper
 * Rheagan Rizio as Taco
 * Hailey Chapman as Microphone
 * Brian Koch as Fan
 * Justin Chapman as Knife and Paper
 * Samuel Thornbury as Suitcase
 * Derek Napolitano as Pickle and Cherries
 * Michael Bruzzone as Lightbulb

Additional Voice Cast

 * Niall Burns as TV Announcer
 * Madeline Landry as Application Lady
 * Nate Groth as P.R. Announcer

Production
Production for the film began in mid-2013 and was going to be released on October 16, 2015, but was delayed to July 29, 2016. It was finally delayed to April 21, 2017. The first trailer was released on August 11, 2016 and was shown with Kubo and the Two Strings and ''Storks. The second trailer was released on December 2, 2016 and shown with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Sing, and La La Land. The final trailer was released on March 15, 2017 and was shown with Power Rangers, The Boss Baby, and Smurfs: The Lost Village.''

Home Media
Inanimate Insanity: Movie Madness was released on DVD, Digital HD, and Blu-Ray by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on July 11, 2017. It came with a short film titled ”Music Shmusic”, the making of the film, and other special features.

Reception
Inanimate Insanity: Movie Madness received positive reviews from critics and Inanimate Insanity fans. The film received a 79% “fresh” rating from Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus saying, “While it isn’t the type of movie you’d wanna watch over and over, Inanimate Insanity: Movie Madness is still incredibly faithful to it‘s source material.” It holds a rating of 64 on Metacritic, which indicates “generally positive reception”. The New York Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying “This is a fast, fun, and downright hilarious movie that even adults can enjoy.”

Soundtrack
The film’s soundtrack was released April 18, 2017 by ''Sony Music. It contains the score composed by Mark Mothersbaugh.''

Trivia

 * This is the first animated film based on a webtoon.
 * MePhone 4’s license plate reads “11-17”. This is a reference to how long the show’s been running (2011-2017), with it still running today.
 * The scene where Paper kicks a random bucket is reference to episode 11 of season 2, “Kick the Bucket”.