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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