DVD review (region 1 & 2)
Directed by Peter Avanzino
Starring the voices of Billy West, John Di Maggio, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Brittany Murphy, Lauren Tom
Release date 24 June 2008 (region 1): 30 June 2008 (region 2)

When a mysterious rift appears in the sky above New New York, the Professor and his team attempt to discover what lies beyond it - to no avail. But when a heartbroken Fry manages to cross the rift, he brings back a tentacled being that plugs into people’s necks…

Feature-length outings for popular animated comedies haven’t fared too well in recent years. With a couple of exceptions (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Family Guy: Blue Harvest), most of these movies have just felt like an extremely variable series of sketches – see Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, The Simpsons Movie and the first Futurama full-lengther Bender’s Big Score.

The Beast with a Billion Backs is better than Bender’s Big Score, though it’s still a long way from the show’s glory days. The story is stuttering and disjointed, beginning as an exploration adventure, turning into an alien invasion parody and eventually moving events on to the planet-sized alien entity itself (which can apparently offer humans eternal paradise). As a coherent movie it doesn’t work, feeling more like a few middling Futurama instalments wedged together – perhaps an inevitable result of the intention to divide up these DVD movies into separate episodes at a later stage.

Still, there are enough laughs here to make The Beast with a Billion Backs at least worth a watch, including Bender’s inauguration into a secret ‘League of Robots’ and Zapp Brannigan’s always-priceless wooing techniques. But here’s hoping that the upcoming third Futurama movie, Bender’s Game, tightens up the narrative and sharpens the gags.

Extras include commentaries, a blooper reel and The Lost Episode (which was cut from the Futurama computer game). James Skipp

VERDICT: 6/10
It's nice to see these much-loved characters again, but this isn't classic Futurama.

Click here to read about the Futurama comic.