Over-hyped

Rating: 6/10 (29 July 2007)

Love the Simpsons on TV - but there was always a danger that stretching the format to feature length would just add padding to the same number of jokes, and - sadly - that's what's happened here. The Simpsons is by no means a bad movie but it's just not so much funnier or smarter than any one of the TV episodes that I think it's worth paying cinema prices. Sure, there are some great gags and very funny lines but at the end of the day, it's a very long cartoon without even the surprise of original characters to recommend it (as happened with movies like Monsters Inc and Shrek). If you (like me) prefer the TV episodes that deal mostly with the immediate family and the way they cope with rather mundane problems, then you'll probably be underwhelmed by this movie. By necessity its plot is widened to encompass world issues and other locations. I notice the rating has already dropped from a ridiculous 9, and fully expect to see it slide to a more sensible level once people come to their senses. No criticism is implied of the makers - I think they did as well as they could with the feature format. I just think most half-hour shows work well precisely because they're half-hour gems, tightly packed with ideas, laughs and funny asides. Watching exactly the same formula for three times as long didn't work for me.