The Simpsons Movie

Aug 2, 2007

When Simpsons creator Matt Groening appeared on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, he said of his new feature-length Simpsons film, “Homer falls in love with a pig, and then the rest just kind of wrote itself.”

While it appeared to be nothing more than a joke at the time, I now realize that this statement could also serve as an effective one-sentence review of the film.

Indeed, the film feels rushed but plodding, epic but simplistic. It had plenty of jokes, and even a little of that famous Simpsons heart–so rare in the age of Family Guy–but the most effective word I can think of to describe it is “thin.”

The film opens with a concert on Lake Springfield in which Green Day, the band performing, attempts to speak to the town about the environment, and is harshly jeered. “But your lake is eating through our barge!” the lead singer shouts as their floating stage dissolves, and they are wholly engulfed in the acidic lake. I’ve seen many happily take this opening as a shot at preachy environmentalists, but in fact this film is, at its heart, one about environmental stewardship.

Shortly after the barge incident, Lisa leads a hard-fought crusade the clean up the lake, only to have Homer ruin her efforts and get Springfield named “The Most Polluted Town in America” by the EPA, the head of which (voice of Albert Brooks) has sinister plans for everyone’s favorite town.

Homer and the family are run out of town by the angry townsfolk, and thereafter flee to Alaska. And this is when the film begins to lose its way. The moment the Simpsons are isolated from their beloved town and the people in it, there is a sharp decline in how much we are able to care about their story. Everything is a set piece, lasting thirty seconds. Thirty seconds in a seedy motel, thirty seconds at a carnival. Thirty on the road to Alaska, thirty living in a log cabin. Nothing in this part of the movie feels genuine or effective, and even the jokes are in short supply.

Many people were worried that this film would make some of the same mistakes of past animated features and try too hard to fit in a piece of every person and every thing from the series. In this regard, I thought the writers did very well. We get glimpses and winking references to everything we love about the Simpson’s Springfield life: feuding with Flanders, going to church, Bart being mischievous, Homer meaning well and ruining everything.

I, however, was worried that adding several writers from throughout the show’s history might detract from its coherency as a movie, and I think this issue did indeed affect the quality. There are several little storylines which begin but have no end, and have no relation to the plot itself—they are distractions, and feel as such. Lisa falls in love with a boy we hardly see, the EPA wants to destroy Springfield for no real reason, and—most dissatisfying of all—Bart takes a large chunk of first and third acts to inexplicably start hating Homer, and spends much of his time with the Flanders family.

But, as I said, these storylines are hardly a part of the actual film, which goes about segregating the Simpsons from their home and the townspeople we love. The meaning behind this journey is moving enough–through the experience the family remembers why they love each other, and why they love Springfield.

This is fine for the Simpsons, but not so much for the audience, who misses out on all the possibilities of a feature-length film set in our favorite alternate reality while Homer and company are off finding themselves. And we never really believe they had lost themselves in the first place.

The jokes are good, the jokes are fine—but they’re no funnier than a single episode of The Simpsons. The film does do a little to erase to poor quality of the show in recent years by keeping with a little of the touching family moments, but only for an instant.

In all, the “epic” nature of the story falls flat, as the characters and setting are lost in the melodrama and action of a “big picture” story. This works for some creations, and did so beautifully for the South Park movie, which was able to tell a world-encompassing story because the characters were so big, and the town so blank to us.

The Simpsons are a completely different matter. The characters are small, every-day type of people, who usually (when at their best) lead small, every-day type of lives with every-day problems and dilemmas. The South Park kids can take on all the forces of heaven and earth because that’s what we love about the series. The Simpsons, though, is supposed to be about Bart’s adolescent confusion, Lisa’s caged spirit, and Marge and Homer’s love struggling against the mundane.

Ironically, when they put all of that on hold and try to save the world instead, we start to wonder whether or not their world is worth saving.

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