Jokes are Fine, but It Should Have Been More

Rating: 7/10 (13 February 2008)

Doesn't it suck how so many big event hyped-up movies are labelled with 'it could have been more' these days? But I guess that means when they get it right, its even more special.
The one-liners and pranks are fine all the way through. There's nothing cringe-worthy-in-a-bad-way here. You'll chuckle, but something needed to be done to separate this from, and make it much more than, just an extended TV show. This is possibly as hard as it sounds, but I'll tell you what they needed to do. They needed to make the premise much more significant. They main plot needed to be incredibly daring/wacky/outrageous and possibly irreparable. What they chose - government's big dome going over Springfield - was not that interesting and wasn't even milked to enough comic effect. Unlike other major crises on the TV show, this one has the opportunity to stretch out for two hours and reveal deeper and more complex internal conflicts inside the souls of Springfield - to comic effect of course. The other plot threads - Marge and Homer's marriage problems, Bart's Dad problem, Lisa's boyfriend - aren't that bad but you pretty much know how they're going to end up.
So what we have left is lots of good one-liners and pranks, and a feeling that it was all over so quickly. The makers really wanted this to be good. They seemed to have wanted it so badly that they were afraid to stick their big toe in too much. It's like a good TV episode, and a kind of missed opportunity.