Movie-making by committee

Rating: 7/10 (14 August 2007)

Most of the jokes fell flat, as did most of the sentimental scenes. It was disjointed. But there were some nice action scenes, and it worked just enough to make me not sorry that I paid to see it on the big screen.
Those are my impressions in a nutshell. More words? OK...
There are really two big problems with The Simpsons Movie. The first, and more important one, is that it has no coherent, well-planned script. The creators apparently finished enough scenes which were eventually cut out to make a whole other film, and were removing and adding stuff until the last minute. This is a poor method of making sure that your film has a flow rather than simply a progression of events. Unfortunately, The Simpsons Movie's scenes often have no bridge between them, especially in the beginning, before the plot really gets going. One funny scene ends and another begins, and you get a weird sense that they could've switched their order around and no-one would've noticed. They're there more to show a joke than to fit into the bigger picture. Of course, this makes the plot not very coherent either. I really got the impression that any single 10-minute stretch of the movie could've been replaced with something completely different and still make as much sense as it did before.
The second problem is that the movie makes some attempt at developing the Simpsons' characters and actually having a sort of moral. It only half-works, because you don't really get a sense that the Simpsons are real. In order for the comedy to work (which is the main focus of the film), many of the characters act like caricatures. It is therefor hard to relate to them when the film suddenly turns around and says "nope, these folks are real, you're supposed to cry now". The TV show has a similar problem. And, to be fair, so do some very fine comedy films like "Hot Fuzz".
I should as well mention here that my theatre audience (Toronto, on a Tuesday a few weeks after the movie's premiere) was depressingly quiet, and there was only a bit of laughter. This seems to be one film which benefits greatly from being seen with an appreciative crowd. Unfortunately, after you take the appreciative crowd away, the film doesn't have enough merits to really be enjoyed by one person.
Oh, it's alright. As I mentioned before, there are some really impressive action scenes, and some jokes actually DO work. But I think it's closer to being an "ok" movie than to being a "good" one.