Review - The Simpson's Movie

After 18 years of televised success, the Simpson’s has made the jump to the big screen. I wasn’t all together excited to see this movie because the formula for a twenty two minute show doesn’t translate well to feature length (see the Family Guy movie, Inspector Gadget, Scooby-Doo, etc), but I saw it on the big screen to see what all the fuss was about.

The movie is made up of three plots: Homer/Marge’s accident prone marriage, Homer/Bart’s father son relationship, Lisa’s newest cause (Global Warming). Throw in some bit character cameos (knowing that the writers had hundreds of them to work with, many would only get one-liners), special guests voices (like Greenday), lots of jokes that they couldn’t possibly get away with on television and let the fun begin.

The film is about the length of four episodes and was crammed with more jokes than you could shake a stick at. There were a few references to the older episodes, they dropped a few of the more annoying developments of some of the secondary characters (Moe wasn’t the “head in the oven” depressed Moe, he was the more gruff and sleazier Moe of yore.) and they added much more physical comedy. We are treated to an extended theme song, though there wasn’t a couch joke at the end of the theme. With the Simpson’s I wasn’t hoping for high art, I was hoping for a few decent laughs and the film succeeded.

There were a few changes to the characters that seemed unnecessary, such as Homer’s shift from ignorant boob to arrogance prick and Bart’s change from rebellious to a little more conformist. Furthermore, there were a frightful number of terribly stale jokes rekindled with violence that rang hollow.

The majority of the film used what looked like Hypnovision from “Futurama” to provide the long sweeping shots of the town and other establishing shots. The animation looked great and the detail that they added with some intricate backgrounds was excellent.

From my point of view, a long time Simpson’s fan who had stopped watching the series several years ago, this film does bring back some of the hilarity from the show I loved. I’m not a fan of the new tactic of using quick cutaways and extensive flashbacks to deliver a joke. So, overall this film gets a 6/10 or two stars out of five. Watch the film and prepare to crack a smile, at least.

p.s.- If the internet buzz is any indication, the old school Simpson’s fans are hating the movie but the newer fans seem to love it.