Not the great return to form we'd hoped for.

Rating: 4/10 (19 December 2007)

The problem is, with a show like the Simpsons, every story both tangible and off-the-wall has been explored in the standard series to often powerful effect. Now in order to stretch it out for a movie they've had to come up with some convoluted and confused plot and even then the main feature has trouble keeping it together for 75 minutes.
I tried, but I could not suspend my disbelief for the plot lines, any of them. We all know Homer is stupid; it's one of the staple points of humour in the show. But in the great episodes (seasons 1-10) he wasn't a complete moron barely able to string a few words together as he is here. Who could believe in Bart and Ned Flanders as best of friends? With all the character development we've seen in the past we know that would never be possible! How about 'Spiderpig' and Colin, two completely superfluous and unnecessary characters if ever we saw them. Lisa Simpson, the former intellectual genius reduced here to pining for Colin and whining about everything. No, the only humour I found was incidental to certain situations and even then there weren't the kind of belly laughs the show was capable of producing at its peak.
The bigger budget has translated into a plethora of CGI-based tweaking that seems to be used as eye candy, distracting less observant viewers from the lack of plot. You've also got characters doing and saying things you know they normally wouldn't just to serve the plot. We've seen these sorts of tricks in other Hollywood motion pictures; I'm sad to say it has filtered through to the silver screen debut of one of the all-time classic animated shows.
I bought both The Simpsons Movie and Futurama: Bender's Big Score on the same day. While the Futurama feature not only managed a longer screen time and a shorter credits list at the end, it also managed more laughs and more emotional connection with the characters. It was so good I watched it twice, whereas with this film I had trouble getting through it once and I'm pretty sure I never want to see it again. I'm glad I didn't buy it as a Christmas present.
In closing I think that The Simpsons Movie is not terrible. But neither is it the great effort it could have been, and I rate it below the Futurama, Family Guy and South Park movies. A shame. 4/10