The Simpsons Movie

by Kevin Marcou

I’m about as big of a Simpsons fan as you can get without memorizing production codes for each episode, so when The Simpsons Movie was finally announced, I was fairly excited, to say the least. I imagined it to be the sort of opus longtime fans like myself were hoping for, a movie full of callbacks to previous episodes, popular one-shot characters like Hank Scorpio and Sherry Bobbins and generally the same quality as the acknowledged golden age of the series back between seasons five and eight.
Here we have Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) creating a toxic nightmare out of Lake Springfield, spurring the head of the EPA Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks) to have the entire city of Springfield sealed in. Homer and his family escape to Alaska, but when they learn that Springfield has been slated to become the “new Grand Canyon” via high-powered explosives, the family rushes back to save their hometown.
The movie can be hilariously funny. Be it Homer rifling through a Bible while bemoaning the lack of answers it provides or a simple sight gag like a rat scurrying out of a donut shop, the jokes are great. And self-referential humor abounds, such as the location of Springfield in the U.S. (apparently it borders Maine, Kentucky, Ohio and Nevada). The first half hour of the movie finds the jokes coming in hot, heavy and funny. But then things start to get serious, and the humor—and the movie—begins to lag.
Now, any show that’s featured thousands of characters over its history is going to have a hard time fitting everyone in. That’s completely understandable, and it’s great fun to be on the lookout for past characters that don’t necessarily have a speaking role but are still hanging around in the background. But there was a lot of potential to bring back favorite one-shot-glory characters. Heck, the voice actor for Hank Scorpio (also Albert Brooks) was there, so why not at least give him some time on screen? It simply seems like a wasted opportunity.
On the plus side, the animation is gorgeous and a refreshing change of pace from the glut of CG cartoon movies we’ve been getting recently. The voice actors also have clearly stepped up in terms of the quality of their readings. One particular scene with Marge Simpson (Julie Kavner) elicits about as much emotion as you could conceivably get from a cartoon character with no chin and three-foot-tall blue hair.
It would be impossible to make a movie that fully and satisfactorily encompasses the universe that The Simpsons has created over the past 20 years, so I honestly can’t hold it against them for the things they didn’t include. The Simpsons Movie is not perfect, but it’s as good as you could ever get from the Simpsons. Woo-hoo!