On free evenings after working GenCon last weekend, I was actually able to take in two movies. One did not go well. The other went only slightly better.That would be The Simpsons Movie. I really was going out of a lack of anything better to do, because I quit watching the television series early last season. I don't remember exactly which episode it was, but I was about halfway through and realized, "I haven't laughed once at this." And then soon after I thought, "you know, I actually can't even remember the last time The Simpsons has actually made me laugh out loud." So I turned it off, and haven't watched it since.
Well, the movie was better than the show has been in years, but that's certainly damning it with faint praise. It's more fair to say that there really are several good laughs in the movie -- but they're sometimes spread few and far between. Most of the best stuff is in the first half or so, which is interesting since that's when the movie is at its least "movie-like."
For the first half-hour, The Simpsons Movie sort of bobs around without any single coherent plot, instead depicting little "mini-adventurers" for each of the characters and peppering the whole affair with gags. Rather like a regular episode that way, and not really worthy of the big screen. Finally, events do seem to rally around a single narrative (the building of a dome to enclose all of Springfield), and things start to get "feature-esque," but pretty much stop being funny on a regular basis.
Not that everything in the first chunk is gold, either. Although clearly the writers thought it was. They go back to the "Spider-Pig" joke that has been the focus of all the advertising for the movie at least three times, and it isn't even funny the first time. It's like a David Letterman bit at his very "Oprah... Uma... Uma... Oprah" worst, just hammering away again and again at a nail that wasn't set straight to begin with.
I rate the movie a C. Not a waste of time. Not exactly worth the price of a ticket, either. I'd say that if you're a Simpsons fan, you'll probably enjoy it anyway... but then, if you're a Simpsons fan, you've surely already seen it in the month since it was released.
3 comments:
I haven't seen a new episode of The Simpsons in at least two years, and I haven't watched it regularly since Season 9 or 10. (How can one remember when it's been on so long?) Mind you, some of the recent stuff has been hilarious, but the writing hasn't been as thoroughly, cohesively brilliant as it was in the early years. The show has become too much a caricature of it's earlier self. Sometimes this works. Other times it doesn't.
I'll likely rent the movie when it's available for rental. Reviews have been hot and cold, based on the reviewer's feelings about The Simpsons as a whole, which doesn't bode well for me.
And to yet again defend Letterman's actually funny Oscar gig, he clearly delivered the thing like it really wasn't that funny. That's Letterman's schtick. At least at that time in his career, he would paint jokes with a noticeable layer of irony. Very Carsonesque. (As in Johnny, not Daly, you MTV troglodyte.)
I would hope the Simpsons writers weren't painting gags with irony, because it would seem like wasted effort. I'd rather effort be made to give us more Futurama than a Simpsons movie.
For me there was absolutely NO reason to pay $9 to see this on the big screen.
I really don't need to see Bart's "thang" 6 feet tall...
Sorry, giromide, but I won't be convinced that saying something unfunny in a dry way makes it funny. (Something FUNNY in a dry way? Absolutely. That's Steven Wright.) Letterman annoys me to the core, and I've never understood what people see in him.
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