The Simpsons The Movie
The Simpsons The Movie (2007) First watched by me on Thursday 26 July
Starring - Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavney, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith
Directed by David Silverman
The Simpsons The Movie. 17 years in the making. After the hit TV show spanning a whole generation, would The Simpsons appearence on the big screen live up to all the pre-show hype? Would Simpsons fans get the show they all went into the cinema yearning for?
Of course only the Simpsons could begin it's own movie by insulting all of it's own fans and dare to get away with it. They did this through the form of Itchy and Scratchy, while Springfield is in a cinema watching their movie, Homer goes on a mad rant about how people who pay to go and watch something on the big screen we can see for free on the small screen are strange. We are all suckers, great start to the film.
This had a storyline, this was for me the main problem with this film, it had too much storyline and not enough of the faces, sights and sounds of the Simpsons we all know and love. For what it's worth the storyline went something like this, Due to an environmental crisis emerging from Lisa Simpson's 'An Irritating Truth' the Mayor declares a ban on dumping waste into Springfield lake. When Marge tells Homer he must get rid of the waste created by 'Spiderpig,' Homer dumps the waste into the lake. This creates a huge problem. To combat this, 'President' Arnold Schwarzenigger authorises a plan to place a dome on top of Springfield, in fact, he picked the plan at random from 5 possible options, he was afterall elected to 'Lead not read.'
The dome means nobody gets in or out, but the Simpsons escape while the rest of Springfield are after Homer's blood. They run to Alaska, but when a TV add hosted by Tom Hanks reveals a new plan to blow up Springfield to create 'A New Grand Canyon to replace the boring old one.' The Simpsons are in a race against time to return and save their home.
Roughly a third of the film was conducted around the run to Alaska, in my view adding little to the enjoyment. There are plenty of good jokes and it is not a disaster. But Mr Burns and Smithers had only one scene of note (excellent one though it was), there was nothing from Marge's sisters (Who would have been perfect for a scenario like this.) There was nothing from Springfield school and far to much of Schwarznegger's cabinet member Mr Cargill who just was not funny.
This is a film that started well but lost it's way. The storyline took over too much and it was not a very good one. There is plenty of subtle humour to amuse and clever ideas in there, but we could have had more from the fringe characters, less in Alsaska, more from Springfield and less of a too serious storyline that appeared determined to ram an environmental theme down our throats that was inappropriate for this movie.
THE MOON OF LIBERTY VERDICT - RATING 'C+' Worth seeing to a point, but don't expect too much. This should have been much better, and failed to deliver what we all wanted to see
