Review: The Simpsons Movie


Everybody’s favourite yellow, four-fingered dysfunctional family (nagging, blue-haired mom Marge, well-meaning but imbecilic father Homer, trouble-making smart-arse Bart, smart and socially-conscious Lisa, and often neglected toddler Maggie) gets the big-screen treatment ten years past give-a-shit (seriously, Bart should be in his late 20s here, and yet he’s still, what? 10? WTF!?) in this surprisingly sharp and funny 2007 David Silverman film.

 

The story has Springfield’s resident well-meaning boob Homer inadvertently causing an environmental catastrophe (best not to ask why or how, needless to say environmentalist/brainiac daughter Lisa ain’t so happy with her dad for like, the millionth time now) that sees Springfield sealed off from the rest of the world via a giant, protective bubble/dome. With angry townsfolk getting their pitchforks sharpened, little Maggie (who has said only one or two words and not grown an inch in a couple of decades. Anyone else find that freaky? Yeah, OK so she’s yellow and four-fingered, but still...) finds an escape route and the family flee to Alaska for things to settle down.

 

The opening ten minutes alone (including a particularly funny ‘Itchy and Scratchy’, an amusing cameo by Green Day in which they rock out to the “Simpsons” theme, and a cute in-joke as Homer asks why someone would pay to see something they can get for free at home on TV!) is some of the best “Simpsons” material in about six or seven seasons (take that however you wish). And that’s the best way to approach the film, as a particularly good, feature-length episode of the show (though a subplot showing Bart viewing churchy-neighbour Ned Flanders as a better father figure than Homer is a bit strange, Maggie’s the only Simpson member likely to gravitate towards the do-gooder Flanders flock, and she nearly did, on an old episode), with just about every character (major and minor) from the show having at least a moment or two on screen. It’s worth seeing the film just to hear the greatest “Simpsons” line I’ve heard since Ralph Wiggum uttered the immortal phrase ‘I Bent My Wookie’. And yes, the line (which is completely inexplicably brilliant, if not brilliantly inexplicable) does indeed come from little Ralph (the scene-stealer from my two favourite “Simpsons” episodes “Lisa’s Rival” and “I Love Lisa”- and yet, I’m no fan of brainy killjoy Lisa Simpson. Go figure!), who also gets things off to a bright start by appearing in the 0 of the 20th Century Fox logo at the start of the film.

 

It probably won’t convert anyone, but the film is funny, and that’s more than I can say for much of the last 5-10 seasons of the show (I haven’t even watched it devoutly in recent years). The screenplay is by James L. Brooks (“As Good as it Gets”, “Terms of Endearment”), Matt Groening (the series creator), Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, John Schwartzwelder, and Jon Vitti (and yes, all of them have worked on the show at some point). And hooray for Spider-Pig!

 

Rating: B-

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