FAMILY GUY: IT'S A TRAP! - REVIEW

It's A Trap!, the epic conclusion to Family Guy's Star Wars spoof "Laugh It Up, Fuzzball" trilogy, takes on Return Of The Jedi and, if the opening text crawl is anything to go by, reluctantly so. Seth MacFarlane basically stating early on that Fox insisted this third part was made and asking us to lower our expectations.

Luckily, Return Of The Jedi is arguably the easiest movie in the original trilogy to make fun of so the Family Guy team don't seem to struggle at all. American Dad! characters are called upon to fill certain roles which may seem like a desperate move but, as someone who likes that other show, I appreciated seeing the likes of Roger and Klaus (geniusely cast as Admiral Ackbar) take part in that animated inter-galactic battle. As ever, expect some cool cameo voice work as the likes of Carrie Fisher, Patrick Stewart, Anne Hathaway and... Rush Limbaugh (as the Rancor) all pop up at various moments. In terms of characters, main new additions include Tim from The Cleveland Show as all the Ewoks, Joe Swanson (Patrick Warburton) as Alec Baldwin as Jabba The Hutt, Meg as the Sarlacc (of course) and Carter as Emperor Palpatine.

The film follows Jedi's plot pretty closely and the animators' attention to detail is once again spot-on, as is the music obviously, and the jokes never stop. Some highlights include a very funny extended Yoda death scene (he does say "Luke" a lot), much nodding before Luke foils Jabba's plans, a pretty great Pee-Wee Herman reference and some rather dark moments involving the Ewoks. Other references include Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air when C-3PO tells the story of the show to the Ewoks, Lost In Space and the band Power Station. The special opens and end in the same way as the others with a power cut and Seth Green and MacFarlane bickering. This time, though, Green finally gets to criticise MacFarlane, how he rips off The Simpsons among other things.

All in all, It's A Trap! ends the spoof trilogy in style delivering some great visuals and much more nerdy lols. Having said that, you could have easily piled on more jokes at Return Of The Jedi's expense and, in that sense, the movie's a little tamer than expected. Still funny and worth checking out, though.

It's a wrap!