Film Review-The Simpsons by David Silverman

[Coolhand]

Short Version: Not quite “Woo Hoo!” But very far from “D’oh!”

Long Version:

HERE BE SPOILERS! ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Take a cat.
Let’s Call him Snowball II. Now, you grab Snowball II and put him in a box with an radioactive substance that has a 50% chance of killing him. You then shut the box and give the substance sufficient time to decay and kill the cat (or not).

According to Schrodinger, Snowball II exists in a quantum superposition, being both alive AND dead until someone actually opens the box to check. Whereupon the cat jumps out of the box and tears your face off like onion peel (Terry Prachett TM). The point being that until actual observation takes place, the cat exists in both potential states.

The reason I bring this up is that I have found the exception to this theorem. It’s called the Simpsons Movie. You see, before I saw this movie, it existed in a state of potentiality, of being either brilliant or a disappointment. However, now that I’ve seen it, the movie STILL exists in both states. It is both a very clever, very funny film whilst simultaneously being quite a disappointment.

For starters this isn’t really a film. It’s more like an extended episode and the movie itself more or less admits that with some of the opening jokes. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is, how funny is it?
Very funny.
Could it have been funnier?
Yes.

The story centres around the pollution of Springfield’s’ lake, which amusingly kills the rock band Greenday when they attempt to perform a floating gig. Lisa decides to highlight the wasteful and polluting nature of Springfield’s denizens in a presentation entitled “An Irritating Truth” (complete with Hockey Stick graph.) Whilst the rest of the town takes her warnings to heart, Homer manages to utterly ignore her and single-handedly raises the pollution levels into crisis point. The US Government, lead by Arnold Schwarzenegger (“I was elected to lead, not to read”) seals Springfield off in a huge dome. And so the town crumbles into anarchy…

Sounds great, huh? Well it would be if the writers had kept us in Springfield. But just when things are getting interesting, the Simpson family flee the town and the story flees with them.

See, the main gripe here is that the Simpsons has always been about the ensemble cast. Let’s face it, whilst Homer and Bart are funny, Marge isn’t funny and Lisa is just irritating. Many of the best lines and gags in the show come not from the family, but from the rest of the town. Mr Burns. Police Chief Wiggum, Doctor Nick. Apu. Comic Book Guy. Krusty the Clown. All of these guys are comedy gold mines. Yet the movie hardly features them.

This really is a SIMPSONS movie, with everyone else getting at most two lines. And any Simpsons movie that gives Mr Burns two lines has some serious explaining to do. True, Burns does get the best line in the whole thing, but it's right at the end and only serves to illustrate how much better this film would have been if the action had stayed in Springfield and been a little less Simpson centric.

However, as has been mentioned, the action shifts entirely out of Springfield for a good half of the film. Rather than focus on the full extent of the chaos and stupidity that result from sealing off the town, the film instead follows the family around in Alaska for some rather sugary family bonding. It doesn’t work and it’s a relief when the action finally shifts back to Springfield, now existing in a Mad Max style post apocalyptic state. We get to see that Moe now rules as Mayor with a traffic cone on his head, and you can’t help but wonder about all the wonderful gags you missed, the crazy antics the townsfolk got up to whilst you were away watching the family do their usual Homer-is-stupid-so-Marge-leaves-him-but-comes-back-at-the-end routine...

But it’s still well worth watching, is still funnier than any other animated movie you’ll see this year.

Now, let’s try the poison box experiment with a pig. A Spider Pig. That does whatever a Spider Pig does….

[Lenny]

I thought the film was rather good. Damn sight better than the latest few series that the creators have been churning out.

The first third was hilarious. I wouldn't be surprised if the writers have been sat for seventeen years trying to come up with all the gags.

Whilst the rest of it wasn't a gag-a-minute, it was still good, with the odd brilliant scene.

The animation is great (though methinks that there are a good number of computer-animated scenes) and the film is definitely worth watching if you're a fan... but unless you really want to, or you're going with friends or similar, ot might be worth waiting for the DVD rather than seeing it in the cinema. Sure, it looks nice, but it really is, as CH noted, just an extended episode that looks the same as it would do on television.

Still, it's one of the best Simpsons 'episodes' that I've seen in my life... so far (he hopes).

[Coolhand]

Originally Posted by Lenny

Still, it's one of the best Simpsons 'episodes' that I've seen in my life... so far (he hopes).

Hee hee. Yeah, that gag gets repeated now in my circle of friends whenever something goes wrong. "This is the worst day of my life..."

It is a VERY quotable movie.

[Overread]

Me and some friends tried to work out what would be in the movie,before we saw it, that had not been in the simpsons. Many hours later we still hadn't thought of anything and that I think is one of the problems; the simpsons has covered so many topics that without entering very risky areas (remember its a family film) most ideas are just variations on what has already been done.

However I have to say that while nothing truly groundbreaking different happened in the film it was still worth while going to see it and I will be getting it on DVD.