Nothing to write home about, funny at times, a bit dry at others

Rating: 6/10 (29 July 2007)

Many people have been waiting for the Simpsons Movie to come out for nearly 10 years. Ever since the website was launched back in 1997 people have been anticipating the film to be released. Finally it was green lit and the Simpsons Movie was released on the 27th of July, 2007. I managed to see it opening night with a packed house, some even dressed as the Simpsons characters we have come to love. I must admit I never thought I'd watch the Simpsons with 300 people around me, let alone in a movie theater.
The plot is pretty Simpson-like. Springfield has become a polluted city and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) decides to drop a massive dome on the city to prevent the pollution and the citizens from escaping the area, all with approval from President Schwarzenegger. Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks doing great voice acting again) is out to keep every Springfield citizen inside the dome no matter what. The Simpsons escape and become fugitives but begin to work on freeing Springfield from the evil Cargill and EPA.
The voice acting is at its best. Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria and Yeardley Smith are all exceptional as the characters they have portrayed so long from the show. I did have a few problems with the characters in the film however. The film gives Bart more feelings then are usually customary for his brat-like attitude. He becomes to caring in the film and is less funny then usual. Now Homer is ten times funnier then I have seen him in the past 5 seasons of the Simpsons. Marge and Lisa are still their normal selves. A few characters are all but cut from the film including: Principal Skinner, Mrs. Krabappel, and Mole Man.
The flow of the film is a bit bad. They'll be a stretch of 10 minutes without a laugh then a bunch of laughs in another stretch. I felt they could have spread out the jokes a little more, especially toward the end of the film when there seemed to be far fewer jokes then in the first half hour. Most of the jokes are Simpson-like: easy to understand, low blows, and a bit of slapstick. A few jokes will have you on the floor crying they are that funny while others you may be like "wtf?" Though that only happened twice for me. However the jokes are way better then what have been on TV for the past few seasons.
A few downsides was that I believe the people making this felt that had to include as many characters as they possibly could. For no apparent reason some characters just show up, say something, then aren't seen the rest of the film. I didn't think that was really necessary. Mr. Burns and Smithers should have been used way more then just the two scenes they were in. Also I felt the need for celebrities to make guest appearances, while a part of the shows storied history, was also unneeded. I saw nothing funny about Tom Hanks appearing for a scene as well as Green Day being in the opening scene of the film which gets things flowing. I felt The Simpsons Movie was wasting precious minutes they could have put to more funny things (though when the barge Green Day is on begins to sink and the band members begin to play violins reminiscent of the scene from Titanic, I did laugh).
Overall, I would not call The Simpsons Movie by any means a waste of time. Fans of the show will love it as I did. There were some stretched out, overall boring scenes that could have been shortened but the comedy made up for most of it. I can honestly say it is the funniest I've seen Homer since 1998. It's well worth a visit to the local movie theater. There ain't too much language, there's a lot of laughs and I think it will give anyone who is a fan of the show a good time though some may be disappointed for the reasons I stated above.
3/5 stars