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 (080307) Two jokes into “The Simpsons Movie,”
Homer turns to the audience and calls everyone suckers for paying
for something they can get for free on TV. It’s one of those meta
moments that has made the TV series a cultural touchstone.
But in addition to serving as postmodern commentary on a movie
industry that will adapt anything it can’t sequelize, Homer’s
admonition is a harbinger of mediocrity. The first third of “The
Simpsons Movie” is as good as or better than any recent episode. The
punch lines are piled one on top of another, the characters poke fun
at the establishment, Homer strangles Bart.
But soon after, the laughs are replaced with deja vu. It’s as if the
creators reached the show’s usual 22-minute mark and ran out of gas.
In what essentially is a flabby, movie-length episode, Homer has
turned the local lake into a toxic stew, forcing the U.S. government
to encase Springfield in a giant glass bubble. He and the family
escape to Alaska, where he inevitably alienates his wife and kids,
goes on an Inuit vision quest and vows to fix the mess he made.
(For those playing along at home, the plot is a mix of several
episodes, most notably “Marge vs. the Monorail” and “El Viaje
Misterioso de Nuestro Homer.”) “The Simpsons” still is one of the
best shows on the idiot box. But “The Simpsons Movie” is a mixed
bag. Maybe it’s just CGI-fatigue, but the animation here is
fantastic. The shading is lush, and computer animation is seamlessly
integrated with the hand-drawn scenes. But compared to the singular
vision of Brad Bird’s “Ratatouille” and “The Incredibles,” “The
Simpsons Movie” feels scripted by a roomful of writers chained to
one iMac.
There are truly hilarious moments. Bart takes a naked skateboard run
through Springfield. Homer fishes with a bug zapper. President
Arnold Schwarzenegger tells the head of the EPA he “was elected to
lead, not to read.”
But attempts to ratchet up the patented Simpsons irreverence fail
and succeed in equal amounts. One character flips the bird, and
another takes a pull off a bong — and both instances seem forced.
The satirical balance also flounders. It’s right when Grampa Simpson
starts speaking in tongues in church and a panicked Homer flips
through the Bible, saying, “This book doesn’t have any answers! ”But
the film’s “Save the Earth” theme seems heavy-handed and passé,
especially nowadays when people drive hybrids to grocery stores full
of locally grown organic produce.
Generally, the best episodes of the Simpsons have treated Homer as
an average guy caught in the middle of the conservative Marge, the
liberal Lisa and the anarchist Bart. When the series makes Homer out
to be a brain-damaged moron, things get wobbly.
So Homer climbing on the ceiling with a pig while singing
bastardized lyrics to the “Spider-Man” theme song is bizarre even by
Simpsons standards. But Marge telling her Homey she has had it with
his shenanigans is a moment with more real emotion than any
live-action film this summer. “The Simpsons Movie” was expected to
raise the bar for animated film — especially 2-D animation.
Unfortunately, it’s just another example of what could have been.
"The Simpsons Movie" is like going for a meal at a big chain
restaurant: the kind with reliable service, big menu, even bigger
portions and a cluttered-so-it-must-be-lively interior designed by a
corporate art department. What's most important is consistency. You
might not get a meal beyond your expectations, but you're also not
going to walk out hungry.
That's how this big-screen adaptation of the long-running TV series
plays out: It's certainly not groundbreaking in the sense of rocking
the "Simpsons" universe. No startling character developments, no
dramatic revelations, no egregious sell-outs, no plot trajectories
in opposition to the series. Bart doesn't start shaving. Lisa
doesn't attend her high school prom. Smither's doesn't marry a
pregnant country belle and make Mr. Burns the godfather of the
child. (Which, when you think about it, could make a pretty good
"Simpsons" episode if a turkey baster were involved.)
The point is that "The Simpsons Movie" plays it safe. Matt Groening,
the creator/god of the show, has said he wouldn't make a movie until
he found the perfect script. I'm not sure why he decided this was
the one. It plays out pretty much like an extended disaster-scenario
version of a regular half-hour show. If anything, we're so used to
short bursts of these characters that it's hard when the movie drags
past the hour point.
Other than making some lively jokes about the fact that the audience
is paying for a movie rather than watching it for free on TV -- and
the chance to see the vibrant colors of familiar Springfield in all
their big-screen glory -- the experience is strangely akin to
sitting in your living room.
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