The Simpsons. Longer.

Rating: 8/10 (28 February 2008)

Here we have an episode of The Simpsons. Only longer. And, if you happened to see it in the theater, bigger. Other than some slightly crisper animation at times there is really nothing to set the movie apart from the television show. You can pretty much just count this as another episode of the series. To be fair, as Simpsons episodes go, this is a better than average one. Then again, for all the time and money they spent it had better be. Basically, if you like the show you'll like the movie. If you don't, you won't. Rather simplistic but also rather true.
The movie's plot starts in a rather familiar place...Homer does something incredibly stupid. In this case Homer's stupidity leads to the government quarantining the entire town of Springfield under a giant dome. The Simpsons escape and flee to Alaska and from there the story proceeds in familiar Simpsons fashion. There are some scenes which seem to be there only to boost the running time to feature film length. In truth there's really nothing about the story that couldn't have been shoehorned into a traditional 22-minute episode. But all in all, the movie works. There's enough here to remind you of why you loved The Simpsons in the first place. There is certainly some room to quibble with the movie. With so much of the focus on the Simpson family some of the most popular characters seem to get the short shrift. (More Mr. Burns please!) Some of the jokes and gags fall flat but more work than don't. The familiar cast does a fine job bringing their famous characters to life and there's room for a solid guest turn by Albert Brooks as the villain of the story. Could the world have survived without a Simpsons movie? Yeah. But if they were going to make one at least they made it a pretty good one.