Dull, contrived, over-hyped drivel

Rating: 1/10 (11 January 2013)

The Simpsons Movie was so over-hyped I looked past the fact that the series' episodes haven't been funny since season 12. The characters aren't funny anymore and seem to do the same things again and again becoming caricatures of themselves: Bart does badly at school and unlike originally, is now completely amoral. Lisa is no longer just clever, she's a mouthpiece of the show's liberal mindset. Marge is just so boring now and just nags non-stop and every episode seems to invent a new way for her marriage to Homer to be on the rocks. Homer himself is now a complete nincompoop who just acts like a slapstick buffoon. This film almost parodies how one-dimensional the characters have become.
The plot is completely nonsensical much like the episodes are these days but it's made worse because it's been made four times as long as an episode. At least the episodes finish in twenty minutes, this tortures us by making us think it will somehow become entertaining - believe me, it doesn't. Like other reviewers on here, I thought the film version of the show played like an overly-extended episode from the unfunny later seasons.
The show itself has become a liberal mouthpiece these days and the film is no exception. Almost every joke is predictable and is about the liberal agenda: Mr Burns said something ironic about how rich white men don't control America, Christianity is made fun of repeatedly as is Intelligent Design, the American President is Arnold Schwarzenegger who, shock, horror, is stupid and controlled by a big evil white corporate executive or something, (I thought this character would be funny as he has the same voice actor as Hank Scorpio which reminded me of when the show was good). When the family arrives in Alaska some man said something about how oil companies are destroying the environment which might be true but it's NOT FUNNY. Please stop preaching to me!
I didn't laugh once through the whole film whose plot is borrowed from other episodes: Marge and Homer's marriage is in trouble again, Springfield is polluted again and produces mutated animals again (seriously, how many times are we going to see that?), Bart thinks Homer is a lousy father again, no one is listening to Lisa's wisdom again, Maggie's hidden intellect is unnoticed by Marge again etc etc. There's nothing new in this to keep me interested and by the time the film was halfway through, I watched it to the end for the same reason I watch the episodes to the end: in the hope I might watch something funny.
A Simpsons film usually is about the other characters too but they're so underused in this that they feel more like cameos.
A Simpsons film would've been a good idea in the mid-1990s when the show was still good, but not now. This film is completely unentertaining.