The Simpson's Movie (Mild Spoilers)

When I was younger there was one TV show that was off-limits: The Simpsons. The catch was this: my dad loved the show. So any time my mother wasn't home he would try to get his Simpsons fix, and so did my sister and I. Eventually my mom found out about this and gave in. This was during the time when The Simpsons was great, when it would have been the perfect time to do a Simpsons movie... but even though the actors had it in their contract for 3 movies, it never happened. The show all of a suddenly got pretty shitty (but not as shitty as new Family Guy) around season 11, just as South Park hit big. Now, while the show is in its 17th season and frankly is not that good, they decide to release a movie. When I heard this I thought "CASH IN! CRAP! It is just going to be as bad as the new episodes." I then found out that they brought back all the classic writers, and my faith was restored. Then reviews started coming out about it from test screenings, and I got excited. So how did it stand up to my expectations?

Extremely well. This movie is packed from beginning to end with laughs. In fact, I would bet that the longest break I took from laughing was about 5 minutes, and those scenes weren't supposed to be funny.

This movie unfolds in typical Simpsons fashion, beginning as one story and by the end, becoming another. This story begins like all great stories should: Greenday drowning to death in a lake. The lake is extremely polluted, you see, and thus the floating stage they were playing on melts. At the funeral for Greenday, Grandpa Simpson has a prediction. Everybody shrugs it off, except Marge who believes it is a sign of things to come. Mean while, Homer and Bart are having lunch while Krusty is filming a commercial for his new Pork Burger and Homer falls in love with the pig cause it wears a hat. After Lisa gets everyone to clean up the lake, Homer dumps all the pig feces into the lake causing Springfield to come under scrutiny from the government. That is all I'm going to say, because there are a lot of twists and turns in here that I don't feel like unveiling.

Truthfully, this movie is for Simpsons fans only. I don't understand people who don't like The Simpsons seeing the movie and then coming out and saying it was bad. Of course you aren't going to like the movie if you didn't like the TV show! But for anybody who is a fan of the good ol' days of The Simpsons, this will be a very fun movie for you. All the character humor is there. Even though most of the side characters are designated to about one scene each, they are all in true form and when they are on are very funny. The satirical humor that was GREAT back in the day is finally back, poking fun at the audience, the government, and movie stars all alike. Some of the best jokes stem from them blatantly insulting you for watching something you "can see on TV for free."

One great thing about The Simpsons is that they have never been afraid to get emotional at times, unlike South Park and Family Guy. They do it again in this movie as Marge and Homer face their greatest martial dispute yet and Bart starts questioning Homer's parenting skills. The great thing about Marge is that, before the TV show only made jokes about her hair, she always seemed extremely genuine and it is the same thing here. At one point, the movie decides to slow it down to give Marge her time to shine and it is a very lovely moment for The Simpsons movie.

The one problem with this movie is that it doesn't go beyond what they could do on television. The complaints about it being a long episode, is somewhat true but that is why I saw this movie. South Park took full advantage of the movie medium, but South Park had always been dirtier and had worse language than The Simpsons. Frankly, I wouldn't have wanted to see it get more crass and have The Simpsons start swearing all the time, because that is not what The Simpsons is, South Park is, but The Simpsons aren't.

In all, it was a very entertaining movie that had me laughing from beginning to end. If you don't catch it on the big screen, don't worry though, it will be just as entertaining on the small screen.