The Simpsons Movie (Movie Review)

Finally, America’s most dysfunctional family is back on the big screen. Against the popular CGI (computer graphic animation), The Simpsons Movie is all traditional 2D for the old time sake because we all love the Simpsons in yellow 2D. It tooks decades for Matt Groening to have the world to grow fond and love this crazy family. With their comeback on the silver screen, the remaining question is will The Simpsons would make any difference in the movie format? Quite common that we enjoy to have only 30 minutes of The Simpsons on TV but how about lengthen it to 1 hour and 15 minutes? Would the writers even considered on improvising from the original theme or characters of this story? Ever since the announcement on April 2006, fans had been anticipating this for more than a year before its release on this summer of 2007. In fact, when the movie was announced on 1 April 2006, people thought that this was one of those April Fool pranks 20th Century Fox intended to do. It seems that the fans were foolish to not to believe it. By the way, the following synopsis will contain spoilers.

Watch out, the Simpsons are back. This time, on theater.

Homer is in hotter soup than ever.

The story begins with pollution at the Lake Springfield. Lisa and Colin (an Irish boy whom Lisa has a crush with) tried to convince the people of Springfield to stop dumping into the lake to avoid an imminent environmental disaster. In fact Grampa got some sort of a call of predicament, saying of the end of the world (some sort like that). Finally the cause to save Mother Earth got their attention. Meanwhile Homer made a dare to have Bart to skateboard butt-naked all the way to Krusty Burger and back. However Bart was caught for the crime of indecency yet Homer did not took responsible of it despite that it is his fault. Instead he goes on adopting a pig. After having the pig so many days, the pig’s waste stored inside a silo began to overflowing out. Marge’s persistent call forced Homer to dispose of the waste. But we’re talking about Homer here. In his desperation to grab a few limited edition donuts, he decided to simply dump the silo into the lake. However due to that, the lake’s pollution has reached its limits and this gained the attention of EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

More emotions are involved with a touch of romance.

Violence is inevitable.

EPA under Russ Cargill’s command had made a huge glass dome to seal Springfield from the rest of the world. This frustrates the people of Springfield and later after finding out that the one responsible for this is Homer, they vent their anger towards Homer and his family. Fortunately they survived the mob and managed to escape all the way to Alaska. Taking safe refuge in Alaska, they had gotten the news that Springfield will be bombed out of the map considering that the dome is beginning to crack. Guilty conscious calls on Marge to save Springfield in spite of what they had done. Homer was the only one who refused to go and save Springfield. But one day, a shaman came to his aid and enlighten him with an epiphany to call out to Homer to save Springfield. Finally with the bomb set on Springfield, Homer had to rush there and take the bomb away before it explodes. To the least, Homer was not sloppy enough to screw up this time and save Springfield. In the end, Springfield was restored to the way it was.

Nudity requires more discretion from viewers.

Yet the fans are raving mad for the movie’s release.

Watching the whole length of this movie makes me wonder if I could ever get the same thing if we get episodes of this movie on TV instead. I mean there is nothing special in particular about this movie, which sets it apart from the TV series. It feels exactly the same as watching The Simpsons on TV. It’s like taking an episode from The Simpsons and make it a little longer. Lets say adding more time to the Itchy and Scratchy Show clip (which was made into a movie in this movie apparently) or add more dramatic yet comedic scene with Homer (which we get a lot even on TV). What I like about the movie though is that more emotions were portrayed in the characters. Partly because the movie allows more time for the characters to develop. Also that the central message given is to save the environment before it is too late. The Simpsons has finally gone from yellow to green – The Green Revolution.

My ratings: 4/5