The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie DVD Review: in 2-D!
Tags: Simpsons Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Dec 17th, 2007
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After all the waiting, all the hype, all the uncertainty, all the relief, all the disappointment, all the sarcastic remarks, all of the… everything, it’s hard to know what else to say about this film. It’s all been said, and any attempt for me to make this review sound original will probably have me ending up sounding like the Comic Book Guy. “I’ve spent all my life playing games and watching movies, and all I can say is… life well-spent!”. However, since this is a review, I guess I’d better try.
The Simpsons has been running for close to twenty years now, which makes it one of the longest-running television shows in history. And yet, in all that time, only now are we seeing a film based on the iconic dysfunctional family. The “why” question probably has a million answers (some of them possibly true), including creative differences with Fox, series creator Matt Groening turning his attention to Futurama, indecision regarding the script, doubts as to whether the film will suffer from the show’s gradual decline in quality and popularity, and countless other issues boiling down to “just how the heck do you do The Simpsons as a movie, anyway?”
And the answer to that question is, apparently, you use a bigger budget (good for crowd shots and large-scale set-pieces) and basically make an episode of the show that’s 90 minutes long. For better or worse, that’s what we’ve gotten, in a nutshell – an hour and a half long episode of the show, although most people agree that if it was an episode of the show, it would at least be “one of the good ones”.
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The plot of the movie is essentially Homer being his usual stupid-self-centered self, with a faint environmental message draped over the top. Basically, after adopting a pig (the source of a song that’s the best joke in the movie), he creates an environmental catastrophe so big that “mad with power” EPA president Russ Cargill has Springfield sealed underneath a massive glass dome. The townsfolk respond to Homer’s actions with pitchforks and torches, and the Simpsons family escapes to make a new life for themselves in Alaska.
There are some sub-plots here and there, too – Marge worrying about Grandpa Simpson’s disturbing prophetic “old person moment”, Marge and Homer’s marital problems, Bart feeling abandoned and betrayed by Homer and finding comfort in the caring arms of Ned Flanders, Lisa’s environmental rallying and her new Irish boyfriend.
In some cases, these plot threads are not only the good for laughs, but also the source of some strong emotional moments. The storyline between Bart and Flanders is one of those rare moments where you actually feel sympathy for Bart’s character, and in all the years of Homer doing stupid, selfish things, this time more than ever you really feel like he’s crossed a line his marriage.
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Of course, other plot elements fall flat. The whole thing with Homer and “the boob lady” isn’t really funny (and seems vaguely reminiscent of episodes like the one with the chili contest), Maggie and Lisa are really underused in the story (as are Mr. Burns and Smithers, in my opinion) and the whole thing with Lisa’s new guy seems to go nowhere and explore no new territory that we haven’t already seen in the countless TV episodes where Lisa’s gotten a new boyfriend (only to lose him by the time the next episode starts, natch). Also, as a villain, Russ Cargill seems to lack any kind of motivation other than “he’s mad with power” – he’s not even a megalomaniac, he’s just… a kooky, nonsensical antagonist.
Still, these flat moments are few and far between, and more than made up for by the abundance of great jokes here, like the outstanding opening sequence(s), Bart’s infamous nude skateboard trip through Springfield, President Arnold Schwarzenegger, the attack on the Simpson house, Homer’s interactions with the pig… plenty of good stuff. But… to be honest, there’s little here they couldn’t have done in the TV show.
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The DVD release of the film comes with a decent set of special features, with the highlight being a commentary featuring producers, writers and voice actors – James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, David Silverman, Dan Castelanetta (the voice of Homer) and Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa, who unwittingly walks into the middle of the recording session). While the voice actors are mostly pretty quiet through the commentary, the show’s producers more than make up for it with one of the best commentaries of all time, both riotously funny and full of a lot of interesting info about the show. In fact, at multiple points during the film, they actually “freeze” the movie so they can go into further detail about some of the various tidbits about the film. This stands in stark contrast to the commentaries usually offered by Matt and Trey on the South Park DVD releases, where they can’t even be bothered to talk for the duration of a 20-minute episode.
In addition to this, the DVD also includes a second commentary track for the film’s directors, David Silverman, Mike B. Anderson, Steven Dean Moore and Rich Moore. Unfortunately, this commentary is kind of a waste, as these guys spend most of the commentary track either talking about how much they liked parts of the film, or commenting on who worked on what parts. In fact, the name-dropping became so annoying that I decided to run a little test – I fast-forwarded to a random point in the film and then checked to see how long it was before someone said something along the lines of “this part was done by person X”. As it turns out, it took less than three seconds.
Other extras on the disc include the many trailers for the film, various promos, and some deleted scenes. Most of the deleted scenes are actually pretty good, which raises the question of why they were cut from the film, but unfortunately there’s no commentary for them or individual introductions. And while most of this is addressed in the commentaries, it would have been nice if there was some explanation for them here as well.
All in all, what’s here is good, but it would have been nice to see some kind of featurette on the evolution of the film, considering that it’s supposedly been ten years in the making with over a hundred different scripts. It also would have been nice to see something on the cool and unique 7-11 “Kwik-E-Mart” promo they did for the film. However, even in spite of the missing stuff it would’ve been nice to have, the extras here still satisfy.
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So in the end we have a pretty good movie that’s kinda’ disappointing but couldn’t have possibly lived up to the hype anyway, and a set of special features that, while very strong in some areas, are kinda’ weak in others. Still, there’s enough going for this release that it’s worth a look, and of course it’s obviously a must-have for Simpson fans. And for those who aren’t die-hard followers of the show, I’d still say it’s worth at least a rental. That is, unless you have a problem “paying to see something you get on TV for free”.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ It’s very funny + The first commentary is ex-celent. |
8.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- It’s kinda’ like watching a long episode of the TV show - The second commentary is kinda’ lame. D’oh! |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| It’s not “Worst. Movie. Ever.”, nor is it “like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited!”. Rather, it’s somewhere between a full “Woo-Hoo!” and just “okilee-dokilee”. | |
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Tags: Simpsons
Posted by Jake McNeill on Dec 17th, 2007 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
