I never like bumping threads, but there's no official talkback for the movie itself and I figured I might as well post my thoughts somewhere.
After the disappointment that was The Beast With a Billion Backs, I had low expectations for this film. Whether that helped or not, I don't know, but this one felt much more solid and entertaining than the previous effort. Maybe because the plot had a much more definitive beginning, middle, and end, or maybe because the character motivations were decidedly more natural, but whatever the case, Bender's Game is extremely funny.
At bottom, I think the writers probably cared more about this movie than the last one. After all, it's a "Dungeons and Dragons"/Lord of the Rings parody, and most of the "Futurama" writers are huge nerds. You could tell they put a lot of effort into this story to make it flow more naturally. Whereas in Beast there was too much at the front of the story and not enough at the end, Game is much more evenly laid out. The fantasy world sequences only take up the second half of the feature, but the first half doesn't feel drawn out or boring, so it all balances out. As for the humor itself, it's extremely strong, whether it be character-based or referential. The scenes at the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots are excellent throwbacks to one of my favorite episodes (with more hilarious Roberto jokes than I think I deserve), and the sequence in the fantasy realm where Fry's reflection in a lake turns into an infomercial for the knife he plans to use to murder his friends is probably the funniest thing I've seen on "Futurama" in years. John DiMaggio and Dave Herman's brilliant voice acting certainly help to propel it into that category.
The characterization of Leela is something I griped about last time, but in this feature, even though there's still no mention of the Fry/Leela/Lars events of Bender's Big Score, I didn't have a problem with it. At first, I thought it was because Leela's been so wishy-washy and/or ignorant regarding this whole relationship in the past, that perhaps subconsciously, I felt that her having to wear a shock collar throughout the first half of the film was a fitting punishment. In a way, it sort of says "act only for yourself and face the consequences."
But I think the real reason I'm okay with it is because by this time, I'm actually expecting them to abandon plot threads from the previous films. I had initially expected all four of these movies to tie together into one six-hour narrative (and judging by the way Score ended, it seems that was initially the plan), but clearly the writers have no intent of doing that. So I've learned to enjoy these movies as stand-alone features. Like Beast, this story doesn't wrap up the big dangling plot thread from the previous film - in this case, the state of Amy and Kif's relationship - but I no longer expect that sort of continuity from these movies. The series was known for it, but clearly, these films are meant to entertain, not necessarily to explain.
And that, if anything, proves that there's still life left in the franchise, still underlying plots to explore and new stories to tell. There's been a lot of talk about how these four films will be the official end of "Futurama", but the writers haven't taken the opportunity to wrap it all up on the scale that you'd think they would. Two whole movies have been spent on gag-fests that put jokes ahead of plot, and only the first film made it look like these movies were going to be the huge series-ending extravaganza that fans expected them to be. Maybe there are still some surprises up the writers' sleeves for the future. In any case, I'll enjoy whatever I can get out of "Futurama" as it exists currently. Score was a masterpiece of plot, and while Beast was still pretty sloppily executed and didn't make me laugh as much, Game is a much better example of how to do a "joke-a-second"-style "Futurama" movie. The only thing that's left is to wait for Into the Wild Green Yonder and judge it on its own merits - and if it wraps up the series and all its remaining plot threads, then that'll just be the icing on the cake. If it doesn't, I'll take that as a sign that there might just be more to come after all.
And how did Nibbler come back? They didn't mention his magical appearance at all.