What follows is my take on The Simpsons Movie; don’t worry about spoilers, because there won’t be any, only general comments regarding the writing.
I’d gone into the movie with relatively low expectations, since the Simpsons’ beaux jours passed seasons ago and since I was skeptical about writers’ ability to utilize the comparative freedom of the big screen (after all, what would the television show be without the occasional jab at Fox). Expecting the worst, I ended up being pleasantly surprised.
Despite some signs of strain, the plot holds together relatively well. The beginning is one of the loosely connected justifications that started to characterize the series in seasons 11 and 12: See 2001’s “Tennis the Menace” for the best meta-Simpsons example of this (Abe: “Aw, I can’t believe we went through all of that just to wind up with a tennis court”). There are still charming moments and a good number of gags to the start though, and one decent sub-plot evolves out of it. The plot weakens a little in the middle, using Homer’s (sometimes-on-sometimes-off) brainless irrationality to move it from point A to point B; you can almost hear the writers saying, “We don’t need plausible motivations, because HE’S Homer Simpson. D’oh! D’oh! D’oh!” Shortly thereafter, though, the plotline recovers as the one motivation that’s always held the greatest power in the Simpsons world–family–gains prominence. From thereon out, the plot flows quite nicely to a predictable but satisfying conclusion.
The character development in the movie could have used, well, some development. Granted, we all know who the characters are (and, yes, we get to see what seems like hundreds of second- and third-tier characters), but it would still be nice to have them fleshed out in the movie. Homer and Bart are by far the stars of the movie, their interactions taking center stage along the lines of 1990’s “Bart the Genius,” and most of the good, non-gag dialogue develops between them. Marge is largely relegated to the background, filling the role of mater familias without any real distinction, and Lisa, though very true to form, never gets to bounce off other characters enough to do anything more than drive the plotline along. Maggie is a bit better developed, showing some un-baby-like smarts along the lines of “Papa’s Got a Brand New Badge” (2002). In the end, the Bart-Homer dynamic is strong enough to make up for the lack of characterization elsewhere and is a welcome throwback to the early seasons of the show.
As far as laughs go, there’s a steady stream of sight gags and wise-cracks running through the entire film, and one or two jokes that would never have made it past the small-screen censors had me laughing out loud. The only downside is that most of the jokes are right up front: There’s none of the Easter egg background signs or between-the-lines wordplay that appear in most of the great Simpsons episodes, and this means the movie probably won’t hold up to repeat viewing. Since, let’s face it, the jokes are what really make a comedy, The Simpsons Movie is strong as a one-time view and makes for a nice little homage to the series’ better days.
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