WesternAnimation At least ten years too late.
Releasing a Simpsons Movie in 2007 (almost ten years after the show's awesomeness and pop cultural relevance and importance was objectively indisputable) is like making a new Beach Boys album without Brian Wilson's involvement. It's just not going to work. The stars are no longer in alignment the way they once were. This might all be well and good for Simpson neophytes who are all about the zany plots and cheap laughs, but for us "old-timers" who've been around the block a couple of times this is even more than a complete irrelevant piece of work. Its attempts to be "BIG ASS MOVIE" reek of effort and a "HEY WE STILL RELEVANT BIOTCHES" that is precious little else than a sad parallel to that episode where Lisa tries to fool some kids she meets on vacation into believing she's someone she's not.
Homer's stupidity almost causes a city-wide holocaust. Wow, never seen that one before. It goes about exactly the way you'd expect. The family themselves, their once lovable characters having long since been assassinated by hack writers for a good number of seasons prior, take up way too much screentime in what I've always considered to be, at its best, an ensemble piece. The cameos from various other characters (who are still a lot more interesting than the Simpsons, despite recent show-runners' best efforts) are reduced to one line or two at best, leaving plenty of space for forgettable new characters like the douchey environmentalist liberal jerk that Lisa falls in love with, or the archetypal crooked government executive ripped straight out of Metal Gear Solid (and not in a good way), with the "OMG HE SURE IS KOOKY" post-decline Simpsons twist, naturally.
Oh, and probably half of the budget was spent on getting those Green Day douchebags to appear in a pointless, forced cameo that reeks of relevance desperation. I know this sounds overly negative, but this is just painful and sort of heart-breakingly bad to watch as a long-time Simpsons fan. I don't wanna be condescending towards anybody, but anyone who views this as a successful and enjoyable attempt at making a Simpsons movie clearly missed the entire point of the series. ...Okay, so I guess that's impossible to say without condescension. Oh well.
WesternAnimation Nonstop laughter
I don't remember being in a theater audience that didn't completely stop laughing the whole way through a movie! ... I may also have been laughing all the way through, but the noise from the laughter and the movie made it hard to tell! You know when you're stuck seeing a kiddy film and all the children around you can't stop laughing because children are easily amused? Imagine that, but with ADULTS! That's never happened to me before. It's this sense of community I previously never thought was possible to feel in a movie theater with strangers, where for a moment, we all shared the same feeling.
For those of you worried that you would need to see every single Simpsons episode ever made before seeing this movie in order to understand it.... do not worry. The 18-or-so writers (various staff members from the show rotated in and out of this screenplay for the good part of 18 years) make it both an introduction to the show as well as a welcome return for those fans who may have stopped watching it. It's almost as funny as one of the best early Simpsons episodes, if not as good. There are in-jokes, about a hundred recurring characters with lines, and references in the town of Springfield that you'd only get if you did see the show, but they do not get in the way of the central plot.
The one negative thing I can say is that it's a teeny bit on the short side, which wouldn't be as big a problem if we hadn't waited almost 2 decades for a movie of this show to be released! There is said to be enough deleted scenes to fill up a whole other movie!
Bottom line: if you have a general idea of the kind of humor The Simpsons brings, you can handle this movie. Catch it, and laugh until your sides hurt!
WesternAnimation Awesome movie is awesome
I saw the movie with my dad and my cousin back when it first came out, and I didn't know quite what to expect. I came away very impressed.
The movie manages to blend a serious plot and character development with classic Simpsons humor; while you know you're definitely not watching a typical episode of the series, it doesn't feel like something completely different. The most impressive part is how they actually treated Jerk Ass Homer seriously, and made him realize he needed to change. And Maggie gets one hell of an Awesome Moment.
The extended opening and the closing sequences were great, too. This film had a great soundtrack overall, especially "Spider-Pig" and "Springfield doesn't have an anthem".
WesternAnimation Superb animation, okay (but uneven) plot and lazy jokes that do nothing but prolong the movie
The Simpsons Movie's qualities from best to worst are its high-budget animation with a mix of both computer animation and traditional drawing, the plot and script, and the jokes. Yes, in that order. I absolutely enjoyed the highly sophisticated animated sequences such as when the EPA helicopters brought in the giant glass dome, the Simpsons escaping the angry mob, the sinkhole that followed and when Homer and Bart drive around the dome in a motorcycle. Those were pure eye-candy that even if were really just filler to prolong the movie's length are just there for you to enjoy for the animation and visuals.
The plot was okay, but sort of messy and lacking focus. It's mostly about Homer trying to become a better person after all the stupid crap he did just for being selfish: dumping a silo of pig excrement into the lake just to get free donuts (it's always confused me why didn't he go get donuts FIRST), making his own son skateboard naked to Krusty Burger as part of a dare and worst of all forcing his son to leave town to avoid getting lynched and hanged. It makes Bart wish that Flanders were his dad instead, and the only thing that makes Homer act to avoid losing Bart is the fact Marge tries to leave him. The Lisa-Collin romance seemed dull and unnecessary to the movie, unless it was just to give Lisa some screen time or a desire to stay in Springfield.
The jokes were very lazy, even compared to the jokes found on the Simpsons cartoon. Bart tampering with a wanted poster of the family, only for an exact family looking like that to pop up? That's worse than cliche, that's very uninspired. Moe getting all his beer stolen in the dark - boring. Wiggum, Apu and Hibbert all begging Burns for electricity but then getting chased away by hounds, also boring. Swallows hitting the dome so that they slide down and get eaten by cats. Grand Theft Walrus where all you do is shoot a Happy Feet penguin, the list goes on. it's like the writers weren't even trying at all to make the audience laugh. Although if they took out all these stupid jokes, they might not have enough material for a theatrical movie, it might only come out to maybe between 40 and 50 minutes, which is just about the length of 2 episodes of the cartoon.
This doesn't negate my opinion of the movie in anyway, but I felt that they should've kept George W. Bush as the US President in the movie (he was President back when this movie came out). Bush screwed up much worse as President than Schwarzenegger screwed up as Governor.
Overall, I give The Simpsons Movie an A minus or 9 out of 10. That's much higher than the score I give to most episodes of the Simpsons cartoon.