How to Extend, Expand and Humanize a Too-Familiar Cartoon for the Big Screen

Rating: 8/10 (27 January 2008)

Credited to no less than fifteen writers, this 2007 big-screen version of the still-running animated series (unbelievably in its 19th season) is fast, frenzied and funny. I haven't watched an episode of "The Simpsons" since the mid-1990's when I started to sense retread, but the movie directed by David Silverman reminds me how furiously clever the show can be with its unique mix of political incorrectness and pop-culture savvy. Moreover, at 87 minutes, or nearly four times the length of a regular episode, the plot never really flags, a startling accomplishment in itself. That's not to say the story doesn't sputter in spots from its own ambitious scope, especially in the last third, but the familiar characters seem revitalized by a plot that not only takes well-deserved potshots at organized religion and the EPA but reexamines the relationships within the nuclear family with surprising poignancy.
An elaborate "Itchy & Scratchy" space adventure starts the movie, and then the plot begins in earnest as Green Day performs on a barge disintegrating from all the toxic substances in Lake Springfield. Community apathy has turned the once-bucolic setting into a life-threatening cesspool, reason enough for Simpson daughter Lisa to reignite her social activism. At the same time, Homer continues to eschew fatherhood, this time in favor of a pig he has decided to adopt and serenade ("Spider-Pig" is an instant classic). He decides to accumulate the pig's waste in a gigantic silo, the aromatic ingredients of which he dumps into the lake. This sets off a natural disaster so monumental that EPA head Russ Cargill (a doppelganger for Michael Brown) quarantines the entire town under a giant dome. The townspeople of Springfield become an angry mob out to lynch Homer, and the rest of the movie follows his circuitous journey toward community responsibility and environmental awareness.
Simpsons fans can rest assured that all five principal characters - Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie - are intact, and the voice actors have completely defined their characters with special mention going to Julie Kavner's frog-voiced drawl as Marge and Dan Castellaneta's buffoonery personified as Homer. Except for Ned Flanders, who becomes Bart's unctuously sensitive replacement father, most of the familiar supporting characters are relegated to cameos. Albert Brooks provides the voice of the Machiavellian Cargill, and Tom Hanks has a funny bit as his avuncular self. Although there are several amusing sequences, my favorite has to be the Disney-inspired foreplay scene between Homer and Marge out in the Alaskan wilderness. Most importantly, the writers successfully magnify and even exaggerate the human dimensions of these all-too-familiar characters in a way that feels fresh and textured.
The primary draw of the 2007 DVD are the two commentary tracks offered - the first with producer and series creator James L Brooks, Simpsons creator Matt Groening among others and the second a more technically oriented discussion with Silverman and several of the sequence directors. The first track is the one to experience since they stop the film for more specific discussion of key sequences, which extends the film's running time by fifteen minutes. Otherwise, there are less than ten minutes of deleted scenes and special features. Series fans won't be disappointed and the rest of us can enjoy the movie, too.