The Simpsons Movie
Directed by: David Silverman
Starring: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria
Rated: PG-13 for irreverent humor throughout.
Parental Notes: If you let your kids watch “The Simpsons,” you’re probably going to be okay with the movie. It’s only a wee bit more on the rude side than the show.
“The Simpsons Movie” has been in production for years and has eleven writers in its credits. Much to my surprise, these facts do not indicate that the film is a wretchedly bad committee production. Far from it! While it isn’t as great as some of the classic Simpsons episodes of yore, it is solidly good from start to finish. Somehow all those years of polishing and all those hands on the polishing cloths have produced a nice little gem of comedy.
The plot revolves around Homer managing, as his son Bart succinctly puts it, to doom them all. Lake Springfield is over-polluted, and in his haste to get to a donut sale Homer dumps one more bit of pollution into the water, turning the lake into a cesspit of toxic horror. The federal government responds by dropping a giant dome over the city, sealing everyone inside — or so they think. The Simpsons manage to escape (fortunately for them, as once the townsfolk find out that the dome is Homer’s fault, they are none too pleased with him), and soon it’s up to them to save the city.
There are charming bits of cleverness strewn throughout; Homer complains early on that anybody who pays to watch a movie when they could see the TV show at home for free is an idiot, and there is a hilarious an Austin Powers style skateboard chase as a plot aside. The whole family is up to their usual tricks, blown up a bit larger than life for the big screen.
Also blown up larger than usual is the animation. Matt Groening used computer assistance to get three-dimensional effects in his TV series “Futurama,” and it looks like the same technology has been applied here. There are glorious, sweeping ‘camera’ movements one doesn’t usually see with the Simpsons. It took a wee bit of getting used to after years of conventional animation on the show, but it works.
There’s little that can be said about the humor of the show that hasn’t been said repeatedly over the 19 years it has been on the air. If you haven’t seen the series, you’ve been missing out; many complain that recent years have seen a decline in quality but I now suspect it’s because a lot of effort was going into the film. While it might help to be familiar with the show before watching “The Simpsons Movie,” it’s not entirely necessary. The film is more like an extra-long episode than a spin-off movie — not only does it have the same plot arc, it stands alone fairly well.
Some hardcore fans may be disappointed that the film is not a return to the glory days of the show’s first decade, but this casual fan of the show enjoyed “The Simpsons Movie” a great deal. The creators don’t seem to have set their sights very high in making the film, but they succeeded at making a solidly enjoyable 87-minute Simpsons tale work on the big screen, and that takes some doing.