Les Simpson: Le film

In this big-screen adventure featuring the lovable folk of Springfield, trouble brews for the Simpson family after Homer irresponsibly pollutes the local water supply with tons of pig manure. As a result of this thoughtless action, the town is encased in a huge dome by the Environment Protection Agency and, after angry Springfield citizens form a lynch mob, Homer and his family are forced to become fugitives.

How much you enjoy The Simpsons Movie will depend entirely on your opinion of the current Simpsons TV show: if you have loved the past few seasons, then you'll have a great time—the movie is as funny, if not slightly better, than your average episode of recent years. Those of us, however, who recognise that the show has long since passed its prime will feel underwhelmed: the movie is often amusing, but very rarely hilarious.

And that's just not good enough! When a series as successful as The Simpsons takes 20 years to make the leap from the small screen to the big screen, it had better be damn good—nay, it had better be exceptional!! Instead, this rather uninspired product just doesn't make the wait worthwhile.

5 out of 10, bumped up to 6 out of a misguided sense of loyalty to a show that has given me so much fun in the past.

For all the creativity crammed into one half-hour episode of "The Simpsons," I am probably not alone in saying that the show's creative apex bottomed out when it stopped being a "funny sitcom" and became a "cultural phenomenon"--it's been years since I've sat in front of the TV on a Sunday night with the primary interest of being wowed by Matt Groening's brainchild. When the show first began in 1989, the Bart-friendly T-shirts and pins seemed borne out of uncertainty over the show's staying power; these days, with the show's position in the TV canon firmly established, your Xbox games are designed for little more than feeding the "Simpsons" cash cow. That being said, I revisit the show every once in a while (via taped weekday-afternoon reruns of earlier seasons), and very much appreciate it--the sense of satire is sly, incendiary, and often very funny. Some critics cite horror films as being able to express social concerns that would be difficult to convey in other genres; "The Simpsons" would be another arena (and easily the more critically acclaimed).

So, after years of hype, this cultural phenomenon has spawned a film (aptly titled "The Simpsons Movie") that most fans will no doubt consider 'belated.' As a laid-back viewer with an appreciation of the show, the end result is frequently "LOL" hilarious, but not very endearing (honestly, I had forgotten most of the gags by the time I was out of the theater and walking to my car). The best I can say is, "it's like a really good episode of the TV show" rather than "a great film," though I guess that's complimentary enough. I will pick up the DVD once it's released, and be reminded all over of why the film succeeded in its primary goal of clever laughs.

It begins with an excellent jab at the film's own existence, courtesy of Homer ("Why pay for something we can watch on TV for free?" indeed!), then delves into a plot that is as incendiary as anything the yellow-tinged family has tackled: an environmental crisis strikes Springfield when Homer dumps a silo a pig feces in a lake that's been recently de-contaminated, inspiring outrage from the citizens and the government (headed by President Schwarzenegger, though I kept thinking "President McBain"), whose EPA liaison (voiced by Albert Brooks, who also guest-voiced the similar "Hal Scorpio" years ago) covers the contaminated city in a huge Plexiglas dome. Before you can say "Al Gore eats yellow snow," the Simpsons escape through a literal sinkhole and make tracks for Alaska as renegades from the law, only to find themselves returning to rescue their idyllic American home.

Which ultimately isn't much different than what you would find in an average episode of "The Simpsons." This is a film that knows its audience, but also successfully provides an initiation for those who (for some strange reason) have never seen the show. The animation is fluid, colorful, and uber-glossy, and the writing is on par with the better episodes (the mantra remains "anything goes" in "Simpson"-world); some intriguing character twists aside, the film overall neither exceeds nor diminishes the expectations of those who expect everything and those who expect nothing. It's a fun summer film, but not an outstanding blockbuster of endearing quality...you'll laugh heartily and maybe feel moved, but the relatively short running time is both a blessing and a curse--while you will be sufficiently guffawed-out by the end credits, "The Simpsons Movie" leaves a viewer yearning for more. I suppose that's as good an indication as any to go back to the tapes.

The Simpsons Movie (2007), directed by David Silverman, is definitely not the Simpsons at their best. Most of the things that make the Simpsons great on TV--the throwaway gags, the multiple plots, the zingers sent at the Fox network and at the U.S. government, and the incredible cast of supporting characters--are missing from the movie.

It's discouraging to realize how little David Silverman accomplished in the 87 minutes (basically four TV shows) with which he was able to work. Instead of giving us four times the fun, he gave us one quarter the fun. OK--the movie was overdue, and I guess any Simpsons movie is better than none, but this was an opportunity wasted.

After watching the film, I tried to understand what went wrong. The biggest single problem, in my opinion, is that the plot was too linear. The director and screenwriters forgot that we don't want the Simpsons plot to go from A to B to C. We want it to start at A and go to Q and W before it gets to C, if it ever gets to C at all.

Moreover, the movie makers chickened out. On TV they will take on any government institution. Here, the villainous government agency is the EPA. Plenty of government agencies are doing terrible things to the U.S., but I wouldn't exactly put the EPA at the top of the villain's list. As U.S. President, they chose a character meant to be Arnold Schwartzenegger. Now, there are plenty of ways to make fun of the Governor, but no one has suggested he's stupid and, furthermore, he's the one public character that can't become President. No real fun there.

So, if you're a Simpsons fan, and you have to see the movie, be warned. If you're not a Simpsons fan, buy the Season I DVD. Then, once you're hooked, you can safely see the film.

There was a time when "The Simpsons" stood for the funniest, most original comedy on the planet. Somewhere around season 8 the show passed its prime, though, and since then it varies from good to okay and sometimes even insipid. I was hoping that for the movie the writers would really push themselves and come up with some really clever and new ideas one more time, but for all the years of developing that supposedly went into this, the movie seems like nothing more than an extended TV episode of latter day "Simpsons".

I have to admit that I'm not really convinced of the concept of putting an animated TV series on the big screen in the first place. Even the "South Park" movie that tried to incorporate theatrical elements such as the musical numbers didn't really justify the need for a cinematic adventure. Most animated comedy shows have a very fast paced humor with quick editing. This works for an episode of 25-30 minutes, but in a movie with 90 minutes running time it would become too exhausting for the audience. Therefore the whole thing has to be slowed down, which in return takes away a lot of the show's comedic appeal. It's a lose-lose situation as they say.

As a consequence "The Simpsons Movie" is unusually slow at times. At the same time the storyline is not really stretched to cinematic proportions. Epic as it may be, similar topics have already been dealt with in the TV show (and better). It's been said before and it's true: nothing here tries to push any boundaries and except for the length of the whole thing (and maybe some annoying people in the theater who watch the movie with you) you would never realize that this is a "Simpsons"-motion picture.

Other flaws include the fact that some inhabitants of Springfield have only very brief cameos (Mr. Burns!) and that some ideas have been used in a fairly similar way before. As entertaining as the movie still may be, it is also pretty predictable at times. This kind of "underachieving", as some critic called it, may have its own charm, but in the end one would have hoped for this to be a bit more special. The movie is by no means a catastrophe, but by "Simpsons"-standards it's just not good enough.

"The Simpsons" have become a brand. People know what to expect and therefore applaud even a relatively average movie like this one. To rely on that is a bit lazy, however, and one wishes that producers put an end to Homer's adventures as long as we can still remember him and the other beloved inhabitants of Springfield as characters that completely revolutionized comedy at one point and not as money making merchandising props.

Unfortunately i did not think the movie lived up to the hype. probably the most successful TV series/cartoon ever made, but not one of the greatest movies. I did think before watching the movie that the writers would struggle to find the perfect storyline to ice the proverbial cake that they have spent so many years 'baking', and they did. not the most original story line in history with some very random plot twists, and some very out of character decisions. A lot of the gags played on previous jokes from the TV show, which being a watcher i understood, but didn't find all that funny, but left the first timer guessing a bit. the movie as a whole had a surrealism about it, as though it had not been written by the same people who had previously provided me with hours of entertainment. very predictable in places, but awkwardly random in others. i must say i did find parts of the movie funny, and didn't wish i hadn't seen it, but that does not save the film. i feel this film has come 5 years too late, they should have made it in the shows prime.