The beginning was amusing, but then it lost steam and became a sleep-fest. This problem is not unique to this film.
The Simpsons Movie rocked. They did better than I expected. Specifically, I expected it to be funny, and it was; I also expected it to be inconsistent much as the series has been in recent years. They were, however--and much to my surprise--absolutely ruthless.
i thought it was great but it did lag a bit though towards the middle. It was more of a beefed up episode. I could of watched a couple of simpsons episodes and get the same laugh.
I loved it. I haven't watched the TV show in many years because I thought it had lost its way. It suffers from the usual fate of comic strips and cartoons: The characters do not age. Dealing with change is the source of 95% of the humor in real life. The three best comic strips are "For Better or for Worse," "9 Chickweed Lane" and "Doonesbury." We've watched children grow up, dogs and grandparents die, college students go off to war and come back with missing legs. Lynn Johnston, Brooke McEldowney and Gary Trudeau are brilliant artists who can delve into the humor that such situations inevitably generate in real life. I thought "South Park" was moving in this direction when the kids were promoted into the fifth grade, but apparently Parker and Stone have stalled and taken the easy way out. Aging does not have to occur in real time, but I got tired of watching Charlie Brown repeat the third grade for forty years. I'm really disappointed not to watch Lisa Simpson, the family philosopher, move ahead and tackle more of real life. I'm really disappointed not to watch Bart Simpson deal with high school. I'm really disappointed not to watch Maggie turn into a real person who adds to the dynamics of the family. I'm really disappointed not to watch Homer and Marge face middle age. Nonetheless, not having seen this family for six or eight years, it was a pleasure to reacquaint myself. The premise was good, the sight gags were funny, the dialog was witty, and there were plenty of "Aw..." moments delivering the warm fuzzy feelings that today's hip cartoon fans demand. There were even a few scenes of genuine artistry in the cartooning, one of the hallmarks of the show's early seasons. (I still remember Marge's psychedelic fantasies when she was falling for the guy in the bowling alley.) I give it a good solid B-plus. The South Park movie's A-plus is the reference standard that other animated film producers don't even try to match, but the Simpsons' movie is in a class with the Rugrats, Spongebob and a few other good feature-length ventures. I won't remember it forever, but I had a really good time and am still chuckling over it. It was worth the seven-fifty, but it would probably be just about as good on a video rental. I absolutely hate the new cheap-shot 3-D effect computer animation films. Cartoon characters are not supposed to be three-dimensional! They are caricatures that are not supposed to look the same from the side as from the front! "Toy Story," "Over the Hedge" and several others were pretty decent stories with a lot of good sight gags, but for me their visual impact was ruined by the cold mathematical continuity of the motions. Those are not cartoons, those are videogame graphics. Shame on the Ardman group for abandoning the claymation that made Wallace and Gromit so endearing, and resorting to computer graphics for "Flushed Away." I am a Doctor Seuss devotee and I am going to see "Horton Hears a Who" because I can't possibly miss it, but the previews have already got me seething over the computer animation. One of the things I love about "South Park" is the way they thumb their nose at high-tech animation. They distinguish Canadians from Americans by the impossible way their heads articulate when they talk. Now that is a sight gag and that is what cartooning is all about!
