After 400 episodes and 18 years, “The Simpsons” has finally jumped from television to the movies. “The Simpsons Movie” is in widescreen and lasts 87 minutes instead of 22. Can it sustain the show’s packed comic energy?
Yes and no. It’s a funny film, but the burden of telling a longer story has sapped some of the show’s berserk momentum.
And for a large section in the middle of the movie, the Simpson family leaves Springfield for Alaska. Without the dozens of superbly imagined Springfield denizens onscreen, the movie lacks its greatest resource.
Plus, one simple fact: Not enough C. Montgomery Burns.
The movie opens with an “Itchy and Scratchy” cartoon, leading Homer Simpson to wonder why anybody would pay to see something in a theater that they could see on TV free. This is merely the first of the movie’s self-referential gags.
The rapid-fire jokes that follow are hilarious and irreverent. They include Bart’s naked ride through town on his skateboard and Homer’s adoption of a pig.
And there’s room for Homer’s comforting, fatherly advice. When Bart says that he is enduring the worst day of his life, Homer says, “The worst day of your life so far.” No wonder Bart finds Ned Flanders a more nurturing figure.
Then a toxic-waste spill brings Springfield to the attention of a reckless EPA chief (voiced by Albert Brooks) and U.S. President Arnold Schwarzenegger. They decide to place Springfield under a glass dome.
That’s when the movie becomes more about the Simpsons than Springfield, and slows badly. The filmmakers took conventional wisdom – that a long-form movie needs a stronger story than a half-hour cartoon – to a fault.
The filmmakers are the same folks who worked on the show in its glory years, including creator Matt Groening and producer James Brooks. They’ve assembled lots of the show’s best writers to come up with the script.
And of course the voice cast is the same. The unspeakably great Dan Castellaneta is Homer (and other characters), along with Julie Kavner (doing Marge, although Marge’s sisters aren’t around), Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith and all-purpose guys Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer.
Fans of the show should like the movie, although after 18 years of buildup almost anything is going to be a disappointment. There’s something about the show’s style – its verbal density, the frozen beats that follow punch lines – that works better with the intimacy of TV than in the communal space of the movie theater. “The Simpsons Movie” isn’t the crowning glory of the franchise, just another notch.
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