movies: the simpsons movie

Originally I didn't have any intention of going to see The Simpsons Movie... I figured it was too little too late... if it had come out ten years ago, sure... now, not so much.

But then both Tom and Brenton said how much they enjoyed it, and all the other movies I was considering seeing tonight were either not playing at a reasonable time, or not playing at our regular cinema at all... or, to be honest, I'd just lost interest in seeing them.

So Simpsons it turned out to be.

I will say that I was pleasantly surprised... from the opening gag where Homer turns to the screen and basically makes fun of the whole audience because they were "paying for something they could have seen for free on teevee" all the way through to the random little pop-up jokes during the credits (and stay ALL the way to the end, for no other reason than there are some cute bits).

Basically if you took various selected episodes of the teevee show and tweaked some bits of plot here and there, then you basically have the movie... it's not like it's going to win a Nobel Prize for Literature or anything, but it's amusing and there are a few nice call-backs to things from the series. Actually, I would imagine, the more of a fan of the show you are the more things you will recognise. I got a fair few of them, but I'm sure there were more.

Some of the CGI backgrounds and bits and pieces were quite stunning, particularly the panorama of Alaska (although I did have some problems with "flat trees" during one of the early car shots)... and they totally make use of as much of the wide screen format as they possibly can, giving you more animated bang for your buck.

The downside to this movie as with a lot of comedy movies is that they show the trailer over and over and over and over and over and over again, so by the time you get to the movie, there are certain lines and scenes that you know, so the jokes aren't as funny as they might have been if you hadn't already seen them six billion times.

Having said that there were still things that were very, very funny... I don't want to give anything away (especially given my comment above), but part of Bart's skateboarding scene towards the beginning of the movie really, really cracked me up.

And of course, then there's the Spider-Pig theme song (even if it has been thrashed to death in the trailer)...

Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig. / Does whatever a Spider-Pig does. / Can he swing / from a web? / No he can't, / cause he's a pig. / Look out! / He is the Spider-Pig!

I gotta say though, I really loved the choral operatic version that shows up during the closing credits!

yani's rating: 3 Spider-Pigs out of 5