For all the collective brain power that there is on the “Futurama” writing staff, you’d think that they would come up with better reference points for their recent straight-to-DVD movies. Their first movie, “Bender’s Big Score,” revolved around the Planet Express crew falling for email scams, and the latest movie, “Bender’s Game,” dedicates its third act to a parody of…”Lord of the Rings.” Really? Didn’t that ship sail about the time “The Fellowship of the Ring” hit theaters? The subplot involves Mom (the always entertaining Tress MacNeille) cornering the market on dark matter, which means there are a fair amount of poop jokes as well. And all of this would be fine if they were smart about it, but they seem to confuse complex with clever, resulting in another Byzantine story line that’s sorely lacking in the laughs department. One of the better jokes involves the orcs, which in this universe are Morks (yep, the Robin Williams alien), and even that is a severely dated reference. And they missed a golden opportunity to make the eye of Sauron to be Hypnotoad in disguise. Sigh.
