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As the longest-running sitcom in US TV history, it seemed inevitable that at some point there would be a film made to capitalise on The Simpsons' virtually universal popularity. The 18 years that we've had to wait have seen many a rumour of a feature-length adventure for everyone's favourite yellow family. Finally it's arrived, under a mountain of hype and inventive marketing strategies (such as renaming twelve 7-Eleven stores Kwik-E-Marts and having a competition between America's real Springfields to determine where the premiere would take place). Let's admit that it was never really going to live up to the quality of the show's golden age in the mid-90s, but that doesn't preclude it from being a great time at the movies. Unfortunately I found that it displays relatively little of what has made the series so beloved over the years.
For every Mission: Impossible or The Untouchables there's a Dukes of Hazzard or The Flintstones - TV shows often do not translate well to screen because they are designed to slot into the half-hour or hour-long timeslots of the schedules. The Simpsons suffer from the transition too; the storyline is much slower paced than a regular episode's (which is unavoidable and admittedly not necessarily a bad thing considering some of the more recent manic outings) and the plot doesn't feel hugely epic or worthy of such grandiose treatment. With some slight condensing and excision of subplots the whole film could probably have been fitted into the standard 22 minutes. Indeed, if it was a normal episode I wouldn't have had any huge complaints; it's a little forgettable but it certainly has fun moments and a typical Simpsons feel. The problem is that - as Homer amusingly ridicules the audience for at the start of the film - we're paying for something we normally get for free.
Unoriginality was a major obstacle that the fifteen (!) credited writers had to overcome but they generally fail. The film comes across as a patchwork of earlier plotlines: we have Ned Flanders taking Bart under his wing, Lisa falling for an out-of-town boy, the Simpsons family being banished from the town for one of Homer's blunders, a despotic scheme that puts Springfield under threat (although the barely-featured Mr. Burns isn't the do-badder this time), and Homer becoming best friends with a pig. Well, maybe that last one hasn't quite been done before. There are new ideas in here, as well as some great individual lines and slapstick, but most of them were revealed in the trailers with disappointingly few left in reserve. (Speaking of the trailers, it's somewhat ironic that they would make fun of CG cartoons when the animation here quite clearly had considerable computer assistance.)
Matt Groening and company don't deserve to be completely derided. The moments that worked best tended to be the ones that they probably wouldn't get away with on US network television, including Bart's naked skateboard through the town and some slightly risqué gags - nothing too extreme, of course, as this is still a PG, but it did cross one particular line that I wasn't expecting. The rate of jokes is quite consistent even if few of them raise much more than a chuckle, and despite its lack of innovation the story was quite appealing. In particular, the Escape From New York-like anarchy into which Springfield descended after just a short time cut off from the outside world raised a smile. Still, I wouldn't class The Simpsons Movie as especially worthy of a cinema visit. Wait for DVD, or better yet, TV.
The summary
The word that comes to mind to describe The Simpsons Movie is "uninspired". It is funny at times but also generally predictable and left me unsatisfied.
