Los Simpson: La película

The simpsons movie is witty,fast paced, touching, hugely entertaining and most importantly: laugh out loud funny.And if your a simpsons fan who's loved every episode , thats all you'll need from it.

However if , like me , your an obsessive fan who's noticed a drop in quality on the show from the late nineties onwards you'll see some problems. You'll see that structure wise the movie is basically an extended episode.You'll notice that the villain is a Hank Scorpio rip off. You'll feel that a lot of the plot points and character drama seem all too familiar.But in spite of all this , in spite of being a film based on a show that exhausted its best gags long ago, the simpsons movie is still absolutely hilarious and i take my hat off to the creators for managing to make it so.

A simpsons movie in the early nineties (when the show was in its prime) would have been better, but the very , very , very funny one we have here in '07 works just fine. Funny stuff.

For all the creativity crammed into one half-hour episode of "The Simpsons," I am probably not alone in saying that the show's creative apex bottomed out when it stopped being a "funny sitcom" and became a "cultural phenomenon"--it's been years since I've sat in front of the TV on a Sunday night with the primary interest of being wowed by Matt Groening's brainchild. When the show first began in 1989, the Bart-friendly T-shirts and pins seemed borne out of uncertainty over the show's staying power; these days, with the show's position in the TV canon firmly established, your Xbox games are designed for little more than feeding the "Simpsons" cash cow. That being said, I revisit the show every once in a while (via taped weekday-afternoon reruns of earlier seasons), and very much appreciate it--the sense of satire is sly, incendiary, and often very funny. Some critics cite horror films as being able to express social concerns that would be difficult to convey in other genres; "The Simpsons" would be another arena (and easily the more critically acclaimed).

So, after years of hype, this cultural phenomenon has spawned a film (aptly titled "The Simpsons Movie") that most fans will no doubt consider 'belated.' As a laid-back viewer with an appreciation of the show, the end result is frequently "LOL" hilarious, but not very endearing (honestly, I had forgotten most of the gags by the time I was out of the theater and walking to my car). The best I can say is, "it's like a really good episode of the TV show" rather than "a great film," though I guess that's complimentary enough. I will pick up the DVD once it's released, and be reminded all over of why the film succeeded in its primary goal of clever laughs.

It begins with an excellent jab at the film's own existence, courtesy of Homer ("Why pay for something we can watch on TV for free?" indeed!), then delves into a plot that is as incendiary as anything the yellow-tinged family has tackled: an environmental crisis strikes Springfield when Homer dumps a silo a pig feces in a lake that's been recently de-contaminated, inspiring outrage from the citizens and the government (headed by President Schwarzenegger, though I kept thinking "President McBain"), whose EPA liaison (voiced by Albert Brooks, who also guest-voiced the similar "Hal Scorpio" years ago) covers the contaminated city in a huge Plexiglas dome. Before you can say "Al Gore eats yellow snow," the Simpsons escape through a literal sinkhole and make tracks for Alaska as renegades from the law, only to find themselves returning to rescue their idyllic American home.

Which ultimately isn't much different than what you would find in an average episode of "The Simpsons." This is a film that knows its audience, but also successfully provides an initiation for those who (for some strange reason) have never seen the show. The animation is fluid, colorful, and uber-glossy, and the writing is on par with the better episodes (the mantra remains "anything goes" in "Simpson"-world); some intriguing character twists aside, the film overall neither exceeds nor diminishes the expectations of those who expect everything and those who expect nothing. It's a fun summer film, but not an outstanding blockbuster of endearing quality...you'll laugh heartily and maybe feel moved, but the relatively short running time is both a blessing and a curse--while you will be sufficiently guffawed-out by the end credits, "The Simpsons Movie" leaves a viewer yearning for more. I suppose that's as good an indication as any to go back to the tapes.

Just got out of the theater. Don't get me wrong, I was entertained throughout the duration of the film. But I rarely got any belly laughs out of it. And I just wanted it to be...well, smarter and funnier.

The animation and production values are awesome. Just seeing Springfield and all the characters on the big screen is enough to make this movie worth going to. But I was rather let down in terms of the comedy. It seemed like it was dumbed down to give it more mass appeal and that's disappointing. I also had annoying little kids sitting around me and their father refused to shut them up...which somewhat ruined the experience. The first 45 min are good, then it dips in humor.

In conclusion, while the South Park movie took advantage of the new medium by pushing the envelope and producing hilarious, brilliant satire...The Simpsons Movie seems to do the opposite, getting watered down in the process.

There was a time when "The Simpsons" stood for the funniest, most original comedy on the planet. Somewhere around season 8 the show passed its prime, though, and since then it varies from good to okay and sometimes even insipid. I was hoping that for the movie the writers would really push themselves and come up with some really clever and new ideas one more time, but for all the years of developing that supposedly went into this, the movie seems like nothing more than an extended TV episode of latter day "Simpsons".

I have to admit that I'm not really convinced of the concept of putting an animated TV series on the big screen in the first place. Even the "South Park" movie that tried to incorporate theatrical elements such as the musical numbers didn't really justify the need for a cinematic adventure. Most animated comedy shows have a very fast paced humor with quick editing. This works for an episode of 25-30 minutes, but in a movie with 90 minutes running time it would become too exhausting for the audience. Therefore the whole thing has to be slowed down, which in return takes away a lot of the show's comedic appeal. It's a lose-lose situation as they say.

As a consequence "The Simpsons Movie" is unusually slow at times. At the same time the storyline is not really stretched to cinematic proportions. Epic as it may be, similar topics have already been dealt with in the TV show (and better). It's been said before and it's true: nothing here tries to push any boundaries and except for the length of the whole thing (and maybe some annoying people in the theater who watch the movie with you) you would never realize that this is a "Simpsons"-motion picture.

Other flaws include the fact that some inhabitants of Springfield have only very brief cameos (Mr. Burns!) and that some ideas have been used in a fairly similar way before. As entertaining as the movie still may be, it is also pretty predictable at times. This kind of "underachieving", as some critic called it, may have its own charm, but in the end one would have hoped for this to be a bit more special. The movie is by no means a catastrophe, but by "Simpsons"-standards it's just not good enough.

"The Simpsons" have become a brand. People know what to expect and therefore applaud even a relatively average movie like this one. To rely on that is a bit lazy, however, and one wishes that producers put an end to Homer's adventures as long as we can still remember him and the other beloved inhabitants of Springfield as characters that completely revolutionized comedy at one point and not as money making merchandising props.

The Simpsons Movie (2007), directed by David Silverman, is definitely not the Simpsons at their best. Most of the things that make the Simpsons great on TV--the throwaway gags, the multiple plots, the zingers sent at the Fox network and at the U.S. government, and the incredible cast of supporting characters--are missing from the movie.

It's discouraging to realize how little David Silverman accomplished in the 87 minutes (basically four TV shows) with which he was able to work. Instead of giving us four times the fun, he gave us one quarter the fun. OK--the movie was overdue, and I guess any Simpsons movie is better than none, but this was an opportunity wasted.

After watching the film, I tried to understand what went wrong. The biggest single problem, in my opinion, is that the plot was too linear. The director and screenwriters forgot that we don't want the Simpsons plot to go from A to B to C. We want it to start at A and go to Q and W before it gets to C, if it ever gets to C at all.

Moreover, the movie makers chickened out. On TV they will take on any government institution. Here, the villainous government agency is the EPA. Plenty of government agencies are doing terrible things to the U.S., but I wouldn't exactly put the EPA at the top of the villain's list. As U.S. President, they chose a character meant to be Arnold Schwartzenegger. Now, there are plenty of ways to make fun of the Governor, but no one has suggested he's stupid and, furthermore, he's the one public character that can't become President. No real fun there.

So, if you're a Simpsons fan, and you have to see the movie, be warned. If you're not a Simpsons fan, buy the Season I DVD. Then, once you're hooked, you can safely see the film.