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(20th Century Fox)
Run Time: 87 min
Starring: Dan Castellaneta, Minnie Driver, Nancy Cartwright, Albert Brooks, Yeardley Smith
Directed by: David Silverman
One could be forgiven for being a little gun-shy about The Simpsons Movie.
After all, while the animated TV comedy has been a pop-culture staple for the last two decades, it’s hard to deny that the show has suffered a drop in quality in the past few years.
So would a big-screen version of the series be a calculating cash-in, a blatantly opportunistic bid to make the most of the audience’s remaining traces of good will towards a much-loved program?
Happily, that’s not the case. The Simpsons Movie is really a best-case scenario when it comes to a film adaptation of a TV show – it takes the best elements of the original and super-sizes them.
In the case of this picture, you get a deluxe episode of The Simpsons, one that’s funny from go to d’oh.
There’s little reliance on celebrity cameos – the few big names in The Simpsons movie are used sparingly and effectively.
The blatant dopiness that has marred recent episodes of the show is replaced by the gleeful silliness of the show’s best moments.
And the combination of heart and humour that has been absent for the last few seasons is abundant here.
There’s an actual plot in place here, and it’s one that keeps the viewer engaged, but it’s really just a coathanger for a series of one-liners, visual gags, inspired puns and slapstick humour.
Basically, Simpson family patriarch Homer manages to pull off another bodacious blunder – nothing new there, Simpsons fans will say. But this blunder is so big that it nearly results in the demise of Springfield, the Simpsons’ home town.
Plus you’ve got Lisa falling in love with a young Irish musician whose social awareness matches her own and Bart considering joining the God-fearing Flanders clan. Oh, and Homer adopts a pig.
Springfield’s first family is front and centre for the most part, but pretty much every resident of the town gets their face on camera at one stage or another, something that’ll please long-time fans.
And while it’s true that Simpsons aficionados may appreciate The Simpsons Movie more than people who don’t dig the show (who are these sad souls?), there’s so much top-notch comedy here that everyone will enjoy a laugh or two…or nine or 10.
So The Simpsons’ journey from TV to movies has proven successful. One can only hope now that the makers of the show will learn a few lessons from this experiment and improve the quality of the weekly episodes.
Rated: 4/5 stars
