Two minutes into THE SIMPSONS MOVIE Homer
stands up and announces “I can’t believe we’re paying to see something we get
on tv for free. If you ask me everybody in this theatre is a giant sucker –
especially you!”
And with that he points his finger directly
at the viewer. It’s a joke by the film’s makers at their own expense,
anticipating criticism of this big screen adaptation of the smash hit Fox tv
cartoon as somehow cashing in on and selling out fans of the show.
Eighty five minutes later, as the final
credits roll, the joke doesn’t seem half as funny. Chances are we will be
feeling like we’ve been suckered into shelling out $15 for the DVD of a film
which is – at best – no more than averagely entertaining.
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE was one of the most
eagerly anticipated films of 2007. Simpsons creator Matt Groening and his team
had been talking for years about making a big screen version of the show, and
they whetted our appetite for its arrival with a series of trailers which
promised great – and most importantly – funny things for the movie.
In a sense, there was no way that they
could live up to the hype. Die-hard Simpsons fans (and I’m one) hoped and
expected that the film would mark a return to the glory days of seasons six to
eight in the mid 1990s when it was undoubtedly the sharpest, most irreverent
and funniest show on television.
Why we would think this I’m not quite sure
since many of the writers responsible for making those episodes so funny are no
longer with the show. It was much more likely that the film would reflect the
most recent seasons of ‘The Simpsons;’ seasons which have become so lame and
unfunny that they are practically unwatchable.
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE doesn’t quite plumb
those depths but it comes perilously close. The film has a running time
equivalent to four of the twenty two minute tv shows but that doesn’t translate
to four episodes worth of great gags and storylines.
The action has been slowed down and the
jokes scattered across the film’s eighty seven minute running time to ensure
neither runs out before we get to the end of the story. As a result there are
long stretches where nothing very funny happens, and a comedy which fails to
make its audience laugh just isn’t doing its job.
What makes the very best episodes of ‘The
Simpsons’ worthy of the description “comedy classics” is their ability to veer
off at crazy tangents without warning, inserting the characters into
increasingly ridiculous and surreal situations which poke fun at popular
culture. These situations didn't need to have a point to them. It is enough
that they are laugh out loud funny.
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE has no such flexibility
because it sets itself the goal of telling a story
The plot concerns the efforts of Marge,
Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie to save Springfield from destruction after Homer’s
thoughtless dumping of a silo of pig droppings in the local lake results in the
town being labelled “the most polluted in the history of the planet” by the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Practically every character that ever
graced an episode of ‘The Simpsons’ (with the exception of Patti and Selma) is
given a few seconds of screen time, although the downside of this is that there
is no time for any of them to really shine. Mr Burns, Dr Hibbert, Krusty,
Grandpa Simpson et al are reduced to making cameos in their own show while too
much time is given over to a rather annoying Ned Flanders.
Among the DVD extras there’s a choice of
two commentaries; one is by the film’s directors while the other features Matt
Groening, Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer), and Yeardley Smith (who voices
Lisa) among others.
The latter is great if you enjoy listening
to the sound of a bunch of guys laughing at their own jokes, but it’s not
hugely enlightening. There’s no hidden gems among the deleted scenes, and the
‘special stuff’ (which includes The Simpsons as judges on ‘American Idol’ and
Homer doing the monologue on’The Tonight Show’) is not the kind of stuff worth
watching more than once.
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