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When I was in college and graduate school, The Simpsons was one of my favorite shows. Somewhere along the way, I lost interest in it, as it grew increasingly formulaic and even the clever little pop-culture references and parodies started to appear less ingenious and more desperate. But I still held out some hope that the movie would be entertaining. Surely with a bigger budget and a longer running time, Matt Groening and his team of writers and animators wouldn't just churn out what amounts to a longer episode from a recent season of the series... or would they?

As far as the quality of the animation goes, The Simpsons Movie is undoubtedly superior to what we've seen on the small screen; but the story and the jokes are lame and repetitive, and the movie feels a lot longer than its hour-and-a-half (credits inclusive) running time. It's so tedious, in fact, that I find it hard to get motivated to actually write about why it's so bad... but here goes anyway. xp

The movie kicks off with an Itchy and Scratchy scenario in which Itchy abandons Scratchy on the moon (after beating the s**t out of him, of course), becomes President because everyone thinks he did all he could to save Scratchy, and launches a ton of nukes at the moon to cover up his deception. This turns out to be a feature film the family is watching in a theater... so Homer makes fun of the audience for watching something they could get free on TV, and winds up pointing his finger directly at the real audience. Oh, isn't that so meta? I expect a certain level of cynicism from The Simpsons, but making fun of your own audience, and expecting them to laugh at themselves for their own stupidity while still lapping up the crap you feed them, is a new low.

Anyway, the story proper kicks off with Grandpa having a bizarre religious epiphany at church, followed by Homer's adoption of a pig that's about to be killed after starring in a Krusty Burger ad. Homer winds up disposing of a siloful of pig s**t in Lake Springfield, just after Lisa has successfully campaigned to stop everyone from dumping there because of the pollution levels. This leads to the discovery of a mutated squirrel with a whole lot of eyeballs, and the EPA sealing off the town with a giant dome; meanwhile, Homer and family flee to Alaska after the townspeople learn of his role in the disaster, and Bart finds himself wishing Flanders was his real father.

There's nothing in this plotline that justifies the expenditure of a feature film budget, and it could easily have been wrapped up in a single episode; so rather than feeling more expansive, the story feels padded out, especially since there's no greater depth to the characters than there ever was. In fact, everyone seems more one-dimensional: Bart pulls dumb pranks and gets pissed off at Homer, Marge tries to do the right thing and gets pissed off at Homer, Lisa's her usual annoying self-righteous self and gets pissed off at Homer... and Homer's the same old dumb jerk who ultimately sees the light (admittedly, this is the movie's funniest moment, involving Inuit throat singing and an amusing dream sequence) and saves the day. Maybe it's silly to complain about cartoon characters being "one-dimensional", but when the quality of the early seasons' writing set up such high expectations, it's not unreasonable to expect a little more.

It still wouldn't matter if the jokes were funny; and there are a few random winners, mainly that throat-singing bit and a gag about bribery and corruption when the family arrives in Alaska. But most of it's the same old thing we've seen for years, only with a lower success rate. There are plenty of possibilities in the material, especially when life in Springfield under the dome evolves into a post-apocalyptic nightmare, but nothing ever happens-- the film just sits there, and expects us to laugh at Nelson's guffawing and Bart skateboarding naked even though there's nothing at all funny about the scenes. It's a waste of time and money, and is easily the worst movie I've seen all year; and if there's a worse movie playing right now, please let me know so I can avoid it like the plague.

Rating- 3/10