Not The Simpsons at their best, but still an entertaining comedy.

Rating: 8/10 (18 December 2007)

Obviously the big fear with this film was that it wasn't going to be as good as the TV shows; and while I wouldn't say that this movie is The Simpsons at their very best, the movie does give many of the episodes a run for their money and it certainly is very funny overall. Another fear for this film was that it might not make the transition from small screen to big screen in a way that feels right; and while this is hard for the movie to get over since we're all so used to seeing them on the small screen, and I cant really say that it particularly 'feels' like a movie; I cant make that too much of a criticism since I enjoyed the movie on the whole. Given more of a running time, you would expect a plot that is 'bigger' than the average episode's plot and it is. There's the usual Simpsons trick of first featuring a seemingly irrelevant plot, but soon it becomes clear that the plot is focused on Lake Springfield, which gets cleaned up before Homer decides to dump a load of waste in there; leading the Government to take the drastic action of having Springfield encased in a giant dome, and having the locals take it out on the Simpson family...
As is often the case with the show, the jokes here are varied and so personally I wasn't laughing all the way through, though the movie does feature something for everyone, which is a plus. There's no real point in talking about the voices or the animation; all of which are just what everyone is used to. The film maybe does try to be a little too expansive; obviously the Simpsons creators wanted to go for a big blockbuster sort of feel, but personally I would have preferred a 'smaller' story such as the one featured in the classic dual episode 'Who Shot Mr Burns'. I can remember the moment I really decided I wanted to see this film; it was shortly after seeing the trailer, which featured the supremely silly 'Spiderpig' song as sung by Homer. This is a brilliant little gag, and definitely the funniest thing in the film for me. The film does try and bring all of the Simpson family into the plot; though as it often the case with the episodes, it's really Homer and Bart that are the main stars (being the most interesting characters) and that is OK with me. Overall, I wouldn't rank this as a big favourite were it an episode; but The Simpsons Movie certainly works well as a comedy and I'm glad the yellow-skinned family have finally reached the big screen.