Rate & Review: THE SIMPSONS MOVIE

[Tomacco]

Saw it again at 10pm tonight. By 8pm the rest of the day's screenings were entirely sold out. Glad I got my ticket early after I saw the noon one. Well, this experience was honestly even better. In fact, much better, to be honest. There were a lot of moments I forgot about, and being in a sold-out stadium theater with a fantastically behaved audience laughing their asses off and being silent at all the right times was amazing. Wish I could change my vote to 4.5/5. Oh well.

Also, Homer is so perfectly characterized in the movie. You really just love him again, so much more than in any recent-ish episode. All the characters were really spot on.

[Ryan]

Saw it again as well at 7 PM, digital. It looks fantastic in this format, by the way, and a nice preview of the DVD/Blu Ray transfer.

My showing was only 60 percent full, so while it was nice to have a quieter experience, nothing will match the energy and fun that was the midnight showing. However, I did gain further appreciation for the movie, not enough to change my rating significantly, though. Maybe 4.3/5......

EDIT: Oh, and one guy in the theater stood up during the credits and said (pretty loudly), "What the hell happened to the pig?!"...we all want to know, buddy, we all do...

[Binky]

Woah, they had a digital screening somewhere? Wish they would have that here. I think they're still showing Ratatouille on the only digital screen at the theater here.

[Nebuchanezzar]

EDIT: Oh, and one guy in the theater stood up during the credits and said (pretty loudly), "What the hell happened to the pig?!"...we all want to know, buddy, we all do...

I must admit that I totally forgot about the pig. My biggest concern, was why the family wasn't more concerned with leaving poor Santa's Little Helper behind.

[Stackhouse]

so fantastic. i'm so pleased with the way this turned out. can't wait to see it again, and any complaints i have really are inconsequential in the grand scheme of this thing, so gotta be 5/5

[snosdwiS]

Does not deserve 5/5. It's definitely flawed. 4.5? Definitely. This was an amazing movie.

[The J Man]

I love your avatar, Stackhouse. SkiFree FTW!

[Bob Snooters]

I loved it! 5/5 definitely! I honestly have never laughed this hard at the Simpsons in quite a while. I'll write a detailed review later. I still have too much energy right now.

Edit: Well I'm not good at long reviews and pretty much everything that's been said has well already been said! Let me just say that I thought the movie was perfect. One of the Simpsons finest moments just like the classic seasons! From the mini-plots like Bart and Flanders down to all the characterisations the movie was awesome. Also I as well must jump on the great voice acting from Julie bandwagon. When I read on here somewhere that Marge was the best she'd ever been in a while I wasn't sure what that meant. But seeing her and the amazing voice acting showed me that the Simpsons can still be emotional as in the past. And that Marge can still be a likeable character as she's been slighty annoying in the recent episodes.

I can't describe how I felt when I first saw the fox logo at the beginning. I was cold cause I wore shorts and happy as it felt great to see my all time favorite cartoon on the big screen. I couldn't believe it. It was the most amazing ever. I pretty laughed or smiled at every joke and so did the audience. I'm going again tomorrow just cause it was that good and to see things I missed. I don't really have any complaints except the ones people have pointed out like the length of the movie. We could've seen more scenes in Alaska and Springfield in chaos. And the secondary characters of course but it would be impossible to fit all of them in. Also they shouldn't have changed the sign joke when Homer is dumping the pig crap. The one on the season 9 DVD was a lot better.


Anyway this easily has become one of my all time favorite animated movies! I personally would like thanks all the writers and people who worked on the movie. It definitely lived up to the hype and it showed the Simpsons can still be that brilliant show we all knew long ago!

[General Jack D. Ripper]

Just got back from the showing at my theater and it was really a fantastic movie. The movie's greatest strength is easily the outrageously fast pace throughout the movie. No jokes seemed to drag on too long, and many had me laughing very hard. Most of the other basic elements were all there too and were just executed brilliantly.

From the rather...gimmicky...start (but great I&S short) the movie kept me laughing. These few meta references were slightly embarassing to me, but were far from cringeworthy. The Green Day sequence was rather painful, mainly for the enviromental part (but the "da da da da" joke was good). The church scene was a treat to watch, particularly for Grampa's seizure, which for some reason, I just immensely enjoyed. The sinkhole sequence was a clever plot point. It's been said many times, but turning a seemingly meanless joke into a plot point is good storytelling. The Bart nude sequence was done well, and even though I know I shouldn't have, I did laugh at Bart's doodle and Ned's "penis" line. The beginning of the movie was probably the most fast paced portion of the movie, but I noticed that my favorite jokes were generally from other parts of the movie. The pig brought plenty of reasonably good jokes (not the best compared to others in the film, but still good). Lisa's love interest plot got off to a good start but dropped off for a long time, and didn't have much of a conclusion, unless they are planning to include him in the series. Russ Cargill was a good character that produced several good one liners and made a worthwhile villain and was played with talent from A. Brooks. The town meeting and them cleaning up the waste brought a few great jokes from Lenny and Carl's pants burning off to "black is the worst color there is!" The town's mob mentality was great and matched the series well. The church and bar goers switching was easily one of the best jokes and rang extremely true to real life.

The family escaping and all the Alaska were slightly slower paced than other parts of the movie, but still well executed. The cliched "Marge leaves Homer" plot point was even handled so well that it didn't seem contrived and was actually emotional. Homer's epiphany was an amazing sequence that produced some good laughs. Homer's characterization was great here. He was admittedly a jerk for the former parts of the movie, but the writers were completely concious of this. It was a big plot point leading up to Homer's epiphany.

The whole ending sequence was a great climax and had some of my favorite jokes including possibly my favorite joke of the bomb disarming robot followed by Chief Wiggum's (my favorite character) line, "he always talked about doing it, but I didn't think he was serious!" Come to think of it, the Chief had a very satisfying amount of him, with several great moments. `

The secondary characters delivered reasonably adequate roles like Lenny and Carl, Grampa (seizure), Barney, Moe (emperor of Springfield), Flanders (obviously), and many smaller secondaries even had their share of moments like Martin, Dr. Nick, and Milhouse. However, Mr. Burns was noticeably absent throughout most of the film. I was relieved that he did get a small moment during the credits. Everyone was well-characterized in the movie, so there isn't really much to say on that subject. I already mentioned Homer's characterization. Despite having plenty of screentime for the whole family, it was still a movie leaning heavily towards Homer. Lisa didn't have quite as much screentime as I would have liked.

Storywise, this was very well told and movie worthy with a very epic storyline. Many throwaway items at the beginning of the movie did turn out to have some importance in the overall plot even if it did start with plenty of throwaway material (which was still worth it for the laughs). The subplots like Bart & Flanders and Lisa & Colin were clearly rather undeveloped.

So to sum up, great story and characterizations, generally good inclusion of characters, a nice emotional moment, undeveloped subplots, and hilarious, incredibly fast paced humor. The tiniest flaws of this movie. Prevent me from giving it a 5/5 (though if there wasn't a 4.5/5 option I'd go) for 5/5. So I'll leave this fantastic film based off my most loved television show with a high 4.5/5, incredibly close to a 5/5.

EDIT: the abandonment of the pig did leave me a little confused. Also, the to be continued part actually fooled people in my showing (idiots), including someone who yelled out, "fuck you!" Would've been funny if people actually walked out.

[Baby Gerald]

It was funny when I saw it, but the more I thought about it the funnier it got.

B+

[Reservoir Dog]

4.5/5

Probably the funniest a silly comedy can be without getting stupid. I did notice though that they tried too hard to do the GREATEST or BIGGEST of everything: The GREATEST Itchy and Scratchy episode, The BIGGEST naked cover-up scene, ETC. etc.

I did enjoy the Marge story about figuring out what grampa's religious outburst was about although it was obvious (at least to me) what was going to happen, but it did turn out to be a good mystery story, which is something i enjoyed watching earlier episodes.

Probably the biggest laughs came from the 4th wall jokes and the anti-America jokes, but always came in a very loving very Simpsons like charming way. Right at the beginning they started with Homer pointing at the camera after watching an Itchy and Scratchy episode, which is iteresting because it made me think of somebody on the commentaries talking about how they use Itchy and Scratchy as The Simpsons of The Simpsons universe. The misleads were another thing that brought me back to the early years which might have been the most enjoyable part of the show from the little gags where you think he is going to say something different to a show altering mislead like the Mary Poppins episode and this movie reminded me of those great jokes that play so well in their cleverness even if they show Barts penis.

I could tell they were working on this movie for 4 years and i think it did wonders to the plot of the movie. Everything happened for a reason and although the movie was only 87 minutes i felt like i came out of a 2 hour movie because of all the connections and cometoghetherness at the end of the movie although i did wonder where the hell Spiderpig went. I would have never thought that Spiderpig would ever have been a predicted reason from god that Springfield would have been doomed (well, maybe a little from watching commercials and stuff), but mostly i thought that he would have been a silly one-joke weirdo character. Another thing I enjoyed rather than having no reason for it was that Homer saved the town with his motorcycle trick he learned earlier in the movie.

Something i thought payed off well to the Simpson-fan was all the references to the shows in the movie. Some of the ones I caught were: The mention of Jebus, Stampy, Springfield Gorge, and fuck it i dont remember any others, but there were some good ones worthy of a "lean and tell" to my fellow Simpsons enthusiast to the right.

About the music, I was really impressed by song playing during the epiphany sequence. It sounded cool and made me laugh, what could be better in a Simpsons movie? Also I was looking at the credits after the movie and I saw for the credits for the lyrics of the Spiderpig song go to the entire writing crew. I just cant believe it took the entire room to write that awful (but funny in its context of Homer singing it) parody of the Spiderman song. I was suprised not to hear a big musical number sung by the cast of The Simpsons about trash or being alienated or something because it was so common and popular in the show, but it wasnt a huge disappointment, I was just kind of expecting it.

I think i have to agree with Maggie at the end: SEQUEL! I would love to see one of these cranked out every so often especially if they cancel the show, just to bring back the crew for about 3 or 4 more movies, because i could see a lot of good, but too extended stories becoming great films. Lets just hope they make sure they dont decline in quality though.

[Envelope]

I said this exact thing in another thread, but...

"Gotta be honest. Not the best movie ever, but damn, worth the wait."

Good times. As someone whos seen every episode since "Simpsons roasting on an open fire" it was great. Not perfect, but great.

Thinking back on it..... I give it a 4.0 out of 5. (I just don't beleive in the decimal thing.)

Well done.

God, I want to see it again.

[The "Urban" Lenny]

I've probably been waiting about ten years for a Simpsons Movie to come out, but as the show has gotten progressively less funny over the years, I was understandably a little concerned that this movie would be a big disappointment. Thank God that I was wrong! This has to been one of the funniest comedies I've seen in years. It was almost 87 minutes of non-stop laughter. What I liked best about this movie was that it had something for everybody. It did an excellent job combining all the positives of the show for the last 18 years. All the main characters that we've grown to love were characterized beautifully, and were incredibly true to themselves. The movie basically we reminded us of why we love Homer, even if he is selfish, piggish, and rude. Although, I was a little concerned about the plot: Homer destroys the town. *In Comic Book Guy Voice* "excuse me, I believe that's already been done before in the episode Trash of the Titans, in which homer becomes the sanitation commissioner and takes other's city's garbage which destroy's the town, causing them to move them five miles down the road. Of course that's just my inner Simpsons nerd talking. However, while I was a bit disappointed that this movie didn't really add anything new or refreshing to the franchise, It was still able to continue what it's been doing from the begging and somehow make it better then it's ever been. As far as the animation quality, it was absolutely astounding!

Now for the negatives: The movie was too short, and the whole story felt a little rushed. If they could have explored the three different subplots for maybe 10-15 minutes more, it would have made the movie a little better. Also would have been nice, if we found out what happened to snowball. I was also dissapointed in the fact that the writers didn't try to push the envelope more like other movies have (South Park: BLU and the Family Guy Movie) Besides seeing Bart's "doodle" and Marge cursing, this episode would have been tame, even by the tv show's standards. Also, Marge and Homer in marital trouble, that's been done to death. However, this one actually did seem a lot more serious and more dramatic then many of the previous ones, it felt more realistic then Homer does something stupid like buys and RV, and Marge and him have a fight. It reminded me more of Homer's Night Out. despite those flaws the movie turned out excellent, and I hope there is a sequel to this movie! I just hope they have the good sense to stop at maybe 3 movies, instead of letting go on for eternity, like they did with the show. I could write a dissertation on this, but it's three in the morning and I just got home and hour ago from a 12:40 screening(all the other one's were sold out, at two of the area's largest movie theaters) I guess that'll teach me to never underestimate the awesome drawing power of the simpsons.
Grade 4.5/5: Very good, not Incredible, shattered even my best expectations.

[Apu Nahasapasawhatever]

well i guess i am in the small minority that thought the movie was terrible. I really think most of the simpson nerds on this board are being influenced by the masses in the theatres that laughed at all the stupid silly jokes that werent even that funny and almost cringe worthy. If you watched the movie in an empty theatre without the laugh track (in this case, the audience) i doubt the movie would be praised the way it is right now.

[Ryan_]

Re the poll - is it just me, or do other people think "excellent" should really be higher up than "fantastic" ?

[ERT]