The Simpsons Movie

American’s longest-running animated comedy featuring a dysfunctional family continues to delight and entertain a generation of fans for the last 18 years and with the film version based on The Simpsons, you would expect the magical formula of providing witty jokes and visual gags would work on the big screen.

Unfortunately, The Simpsons Movie provides little joy which is disheartening compared to the sublime half-hour show on Springfield. It seems the team of writers were having difficulty on how to adapt the popular cartoon series into a feature-length picture, as every pop-culture references and situations have been done before… After all, why would you buy a ticket when you can watch it on television?

The lack of jokes hits you hard. It’s unbelievable to discover that the movie is more like a mediocre episode from the current season, only this time it is stretched over eighty minutes… And it certainly doesn’t help that some of the inhabitants of Springfield have only very brief cameos including Monty Burns.

Speaking of characters, Homer J Simpson never reaches his true absurdist extremes you come to expect. Rebel Bart Simpson is lost in a dull storyline of being neglected by his father’s love and turns to Ned Flanders for a sense of well being… Lisa falls in love with a random Irish boy. As for Marge, she continues to despair over her husband’s antics while Maggie… well, she does say her first words.

Don’t get me wrong, the movie is still entertaining and the quality of the animation is more advanced over the cartoon show, but you can’t help but feel a little under whelmed. It still has it charms and Homer continues to make you laugh at his stupidity, but by ‘Simpsons’-standards it’s just not good enough.