Simpsons Movie, The
The Simpsons has been around forever now, but for at least half of its existence it’s been well off my radar. Mediocre episode after mediocre episode crammed with the same ‘Homer is stupid!’ gags and celebrity voice cameos turned me off and then South Park and Futurama wooed my attention elsewheres and it never returned.
Sure, when I flick through Foxtel or Channel 10 and stumble across an old favourite I’ll watch it for the thirtieth time, and sure even the lame new episodes shit all over the pathetic Family Guy, but overall I was under the impression the shoe had done its dash, jumped its shark.
This preamble is basically leading into the explanation that I really wasn’t expecting much from The Simpsons Movie. Lucky, because it was decisively average. Almost forgettable actually.
Okay so there were two or three belly laughs and a couple of chuckles but as soon as we hit the time when an episode would be coming to a close I got restless. Half an hour after that I was plain bored.
The story idea is nothing special, other than being surprisingly too safe and more soft and sentimental than the show has ever been. The real shame is that we stick very close to the family unit leaving all the other colourful Springfieldians relegated to a single – mostly unfunny and predictable – line each, if that. That the audience seemed to walk away cracking up over the antics of ‘Spider-Pig’ as the obvious highlight says it all really.