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The Simpsons Movie Movie Review

The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 animated comedy film directed by David Silverman. It’s a very satisfactory movie adaptation of this iconic show.

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“I will not illegally download this movie“

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In this movie, Homer causes a massive ecological disaster, the family becomes fugitives and it is up to him to fix all of this by becoming a better person who is more conscious of other people’s problems. Yes, the movie does the show’s most important character right. In fact, this is one of his best roles past the ninth season, which is where the quality of the show and its characterization dropped significantly. He grows into a better person, but most importantly, he is continually very funny and sometimes hilarious with some great lines of dialogue and gags with the spider pig being the most memorable.

Unfortunately, others fare much worse in this instance. I did like the main family – Marge is her usual self, Lisa is cute in her obsession with her new boy crush and Bart is the most memorable in that iconic penis reveal, which is a scene that is perfectly executed throughout, ending in an especially funny horrified Ned Flanders moment.

But again, others are weak. I could not remember almost anyone from this movie when it comes to the supporting characters, and that’s a problem having in mind the show is famous for its great supporting players. Then again, this is a rather short movie, so they probably did not have enough time to include them in any larger capacity.

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The overall storyline actually worked for me. The dome looked splendid and very cool, and I found Alaska gorgeous to behold. The snow scenes are beautifully animated and the first scenes where they arrive in Alaska were a joy for sure. Grampa prophesying doom and then forgetting about it was hilarious as was that ‘Snow White’ parody sequence, which was suitably sexual and funny in nature.

The Simpsons Movie is problematic thematically speaking. It never has anything new or of true substance to say about ecological issues and it’s rather tiresome in that regard. It was a solid storytelling approach for a feature movie, but it led to an overly dramatic second half, in particular the third act was quite typical and forgettable.

But the first half is so good and actually surprisingly funny that I ended up having a blast watching this movie. It’s nowhere near as great as ‘South Park – Bigger, Longer and Uncut’, but it’s much better than it had any right to be as usually most of these movie adaptations of television shows fall flat on their face.

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The animation is excellent here. It’s polished and modern, but retaining the show’s signature simplistic, charming and colorful qualities. The dialogue is also stupendous and the tonal shifts are mostly well done, though the pacing could have been better. Technically speaking, it’s a well crafted movie, and it’s just cinematic enough that it justified its existence in this format.

Albeit overly dramatic and less memorable in the second half, The Simpsons Movie is actually quite terrific in its very amusing, frequently quite funny first half. This was a surprisingly strong cinematic adaptation of this iconic show that surely failed its supporting characters, but it did the main ones right, especially Homer who is excellent here. The movie is thin thematically speaking, but it’s very entertaining, well written and mostly quite satisfactory.

My Rating – 4

You can get The Simpsons Movie on Amazon.