Review in a Hurry: Homer and his family's big-screen odyssey is slicker and funnier than any episode of the show in years, which should make for a rain of dough-nuts at the box office. And nobody even has a cow, as many of the catchphrases you might dread go thankfully unspoken.
The Bigger Picture: Yellow, four-fingered rubes: check.
The Bigger Picture: Yellow, four-fingered rubes: check.
Incisive, contemporary jokes and inspired Wile E. Coyote gags: check. Multiple instances of humor involving Homer's checklists: check. A Simpsons movie might as well be an act of box-ticking at this point, so well- worn the characters and stories of Springfield's first family. Wagering the show's legacy on a film version is a risky proposition, so it's a relief that The Simpsons Movie is at least good, if not necessarily great.
It might be great. It's hard to say, on one viewing, how The Simpsons Movie holds up against episodes you might have seen 20 or 30 times.
But the animation is clean and vibrant, the laughs sometimes come one on top of another, and the tongue is so firmly in cheek you can taste the dimples—everything you could hope for, apart from the sublime brilliance that the show built up over nearly two decades, which is a cultural patina the movie can't possibly develop until after the special-edition DVD release, at the very least.
Since spoiling a Simpsons plot is spoiling a Simpsons joke, let's just say that the story passes muster, being more or less a greatest-hits composite of choice bits from the series that is only slightly less than the sum of its recycled parts. The movie's brisk, sometimes martial pacing—setup, punchline, non sequitur, callback, moving on!—quashes any sense of déjà vu you might get from the nagging feeling that you've seen some of it 400 times before. And even if you have, why, you might just watch it again in repeats anyway.
The 180—a Second Opinion: The Homer-centric plot may disappoint fans hoping for more involvement from the series' massive cast of characters, here mostly relegated to one-liners and sight gags. And though the production values are boosted nicely, split this movie into 22-minute chunks and you wouldn't call any one of them the Best. Episode. Ever.
It might be great. It's hard to say, on one viewing, how The Simpsons Movie holds up against episodes you might have seen 20 or 30 times.
But the animation is clean and vibrant, the laughs sometimes come one on top of another, and the tongue is so firmly in cheek you can taste the dimples—everything you could hope for, apart from the sublime brilliance that the show built up over nearly two decades, which is a cultural patina the movie can't possibly develop until after the special-edition DVD release, at the very least.
Since spoiling a Simpsons plot is spoiling a Simpsons joke, let's just say that the story passes muster, being more or less a greatest-hits composite of choice bits from the series that is only slightly less than the sum of its recycled parts. The movie's brisk, sometimes martial pacing—setup, punchline, non sequitur, callback, moving on!—quashes any sense of déjà vu you might get from the nagging feeling that you've seen some of it 400 times before. And even if you have, why, you might just watch it again in repeats anyway.
The 180—a Second Opinion: The Homer-centric plot may disappoint fans hoping for more involvement from the series' massive cast of characters, here mostly relegated to one-liners and sight gags. And though the production values are boosted nicely, split this movie into 22-minute chunks and you wouldn't call any one of them the Best. Episode. Ever.