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Review #101: The Simpsons Movie
Homer Simpson in his usual non-thinking mentality, decides to get himself a new pet. In the process, he poisons Lake Springfield beyond recovery and the EPA decide that Springfield is too polluted to be allowed to live.
When the EPA decide to drop a giant glass Dome over the town, the Simpson family, under fear of being lynched due to Homer's stupid ways, manage to escape and head for Alaska.
Eventually though, guilt gets the better of them and they head home to save their friends.
More of an extended version of the hit TV show, The Simpsons Movie starts out with one ideal, then heads quickly through a sequence of unrelated events and eventually finds it's main story about a third of the way through.
What makes the movie watchable is the similar feel to the TV series in screenplay.
The humour of the TV series is carried over brilliantly too. Coming from the guys who have basically written a squillion episodes anyway I guess that wasn't too hard.
What gives it more substance though is that some of the humour is a little bit more risque in feel and some imagery is seen that probably wouldn't have made it into the family friendly series.
What does let it down though is that anyone not up on the series may feel a bit left out through some of the in-jokes, the movie isn't really universal.
The animation is the main thing about the movie.
Compared to the series, it's far grander, clearer, cleaner and much more colourful and computers have also been brought into play, giving the look of the animation the ocassional Futurama-esk feel.
The voice acting is better than the series too.
All of the cast, well, I say all of the cast, what I mean is the 2 people that voice pretty much ever character involved are at the top of their game.
The dialogue delivery and, simply the overall voices, are all given 1000% by the actors.
What maybe lets the film down is the script. The screenplay is good, as I said, it's the same as the TV series and feels nicely familiar, but the overall script is a bit stale.
With the money that was thrown at the writing department, they could have found something better than just a basic environmental story mixed with typical Simpsons humour.
All in all, a lengthy version of the series but is still a lot of fun and the humour and animation are much crisper than usual.
Still though, I'd only really recommend it for fans of the TV series.
My rating 70%
Homer Simpson in his usual non-thinking mentality, decides to get himself a new pet. In the process, he poisons Lake Springfield beyond recovery and the EPA decide that Springfield is too polluted to be allowed to live.
When the EPA decide to drop a giant glass Dome over the town, the Simpson family, under fear of being lynched due to Homer's stupid ways, manage to escape and head for Alaska.
Eventually though, guilt gets the better of them and they head home to save their friends.
More of an extended version of the hit TV show, The Simpsons Movie starts out with one ideal, then heads quickly through a sequence of unrelated events and eventually finds it's main story about a third of the way through.
What makes the movie watchable is the similar feel to the TV series in screenplay.
The humour of the TV series is carried over brilliantly too. Coming from the guys who have basically written a squillion episodes anyway I guess that wasn't too hard.
What gives it more substance though is that some of the humour is a little bit more risque in feel and some imagery is seen that probably wouldn't have made it into the family friendly series.
What does let it down though is that anyone not up on the series may feel a bit left out through some of the in-jokes, the movie isn't really universal.
The animation is the main thing about the movie.
Compared to the series, it's far grander, clearer, cleaner and much more colourful and computers have also been brought into play, giving the look of the animation the ocassional Futurama-esk feel.
The voice acting is better than the series too.
All of the cast, well, I say all of the cast, what I mean is the 2 people that voice pretty much ever character involved are at the top of their game.
The dialogue delivery and, simply the overall voices, are all given 1000% by the actors.
What maybe lets the film down is the script. The screenplay is good, as I said, it's the same as the TV series and feels nicely familiar, but the overall script is a bit stale.
With the money that was thrown at the writing department, they could have found something better than just a basic environmental story mixed with typical Simpsons humour.
All in all, a lengthy version of the series but is still a lot of fun and the humour and animation are much crisper than usual.
Still though, I'd only really recommend it for fans of the TV series.
My rating 70%
