Entertaining, but not great

Rating: 4/10 (9 August 2007)

I had to vote this a bit unfairly low because as an absolute Simpsons fan dating back to watching the Tracy Ulman show in college, I can't understand where the high average is coming from...
I'll just summarize what I think went wrong with the movie compared to the "classic" episodes:
--Lisa's childhood crushes and youth activism episodes have never been funny. I almost suspect it was a ploy to capitalize on the popularity of cartoon characters with Irish accents. --Ned Flanders is best used as the butt of a joke, letting us laugh as his over-the-top cautiousness or religious behavior. He was just sappy in this. --Bart should definitely be the prankster, not having heart-melting moments and needing a hug. --Homer just has to be slapstick-stupid, and spend less time thinking! --It added no great one-liners to pull out in the future on when life imitates the Simpsons (as it almost always does).