A Homer of Another Sort

Rating: 6/10 (5 August 2007)

Maybe I went into this movie with very high expectations, so it was just alright for me. Not the laugh-out-loud-fest that I thought. I admit I haven't been watching the TV series lately already, so maybe that's part of the reason.
The line at the beginning of the movie says it all so frankly: Why watch a movie that you can watch on TV for free??? It even goes further to call everyone watching a sucker! I think those were the best lines in the whole movie! Hahaha! The humor was not very spontaneous, especially in a lot of parts that dealt with the main plot of how Homer single-handedly wreaked environmental havoc on Springfield and its dire consequences on his family. The Alaska part of the movie was not very productive. I took away a lot of screen time that could've been given to Mr. Burns and Smithers, Maggie's sisters, Apu and the other interesting characters in Springfield itself.
The storyline of Bart was quite dramatic and even touching (ironic, huh? hehe). Marge, Lisa and Maggie act as I knew them, and I liked that. Lisa's really a great quirky little character. However, for me, Homer's character was not very likable in this film, compared to how he was in the TV show. On TV, the tight situations Homer gets into were due to his stupidity and boorishness, which we find cute and charming. But in this movie, he seemed to be uncharacteristically ill-tempered and ill-intentioned. I think this was a major issue in my not liking the movie as much I wanted to. Even the main bone of contention in the plot, the Pig, was just as easily and casually dismissed and forgotten in the end, as it was haphazardly introduced in the beginning.