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Yes, ‘Spider Pig’ Is The Best Part
By bukkhead | August 10, 2007
FILM REVIEW: ‘THE SIMPSONS MOVIE’
Written by James L. Brooks and Matt Groening, et al
Directed by David Silverman
Rated PG
87 mins.
I have to believe that people who have seen The Simpson’s movie come in two varieties: the hard-core fans, and the rest of us. Well, you can add a third, I suppose: the reluctant viewer who knows very little because she eschews mass media and prime-time TV in particular, dragged by her boyfriend who nevertheless falls into that first group. This review is for the people in the second group. The ones in the first group can be spoken too by the real world equivalent of the comic-book guy. Ironically, the third group will also be able to appreciate read his scathing attacks.
Before I saw it, someone told me that the movie was basically a long episode. I have to say I disagree. I don’t know if you call it cinematography when you’re talking about animation, but the way scenes were framed was different from the TV show. The play up of tension was much more movie-esque then half-hour tv-show-esque. When they call this “The Movie,” they don’t just mean because it lasts for more than 60 minutes.
On the other hand, there’s nothing new here, from a story or character perspective. It’s the same old thing: Homer is stupid and selfish, and does something awful that everyone hates him for. Eventually he decides or is tricked or accidentally comes to fix everything, and winds up the big hero. Remember when the Simpons was more about Bart than Homer? Not that I’m complaining.
Nor am I complaining about this plot, as it were. I’m not here to say they need to make more Simpson’s movies, but they should also not try to do too much with a new genre. There’s enough going on in the film that they couldn’t have gotten away with on TV to keep one satisfied. It might even be just a matter of the creators sowing a few oats.
Or getting in a final branding push before the series finally ends. Or maybe just a booster shot so the series can keep going for a few more years. What it’s not, I feel, is a change of pace to shake things up and get a new perspective on an old standard. Because that’s really what the Simpson’s have become: an industry, an institution. Even inside jokes and self-deprecation have become such an expectation, that to change the formula would be to throw dirt clods at fortress walls. It would only make things bland.
So kudos to the movie makers, whomever they are (the credits, which you sit through in case there’s some surprise, seem to roll on forever) for not losing control and going crazy with all the movie potential. The movie is solid Simpson’s fare, and in this way is as much a must-see for fans as the latest season on DVD, in as much as they will want to see it, eventually, though they don’t have to get out there and do so right now. Nothing’s going to change much when they do.
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