The Simpsons Movie: A Movie, Not A Monkey
Dec 19, 2007
"The Simpsons Movie," put back onto the small screen as a DVD this week, is just an engorgement, but not a cheating at all. It’s - in its very nature - just the smashing together of three or four episodes of the television program, but then it was also behooving the writers to not just go about the business as usual. It needed to be a movie and feel as if it could be 20 feet wide and 10 feet tall, or whatever the dimensions may work out to be in the biz. The movie works - as many critics pointed out when it was released earlier this year theatrically in synch with a handful of 7-Elevens around the country getting Kwik-E-Mart makeovers - and yet it’s not really because of anything wholly new. It’s more a case of the movie not jumping the shark, just intelligently and cleverly chasing its tale. It follows around storylines that are reassuring and comfortable. Homer screws up royally again. Marge is forced to give him an ultimatum: abandon his frivolous behaviors, his impulsive actions that leave everyone dumbfounded or she’s out of his life for good. Somehow there never seem to be any divorces in cartoons. Why is this? Marge could have cited irreconcilable differences on those papers countless times over the last 19 seasons and 409 episodes. Wilma Flintstone could have done that too, as could have Lois from The Family Guy. They stick with their men, these ladies do. Homer and Bart find themselves at odds - there’s choking and bodily harm and one-upsmanship. Religion is mocked - again successfully - as Homer thumbs through the Bible quickly with Grandpa seizuring in the middle of a sermon, sending the prophetic message of a crazy man, declaring that there are no answers in there. The pig that Homer saves and ultimately becomes the root of the town of Springfield being faced with a toxic lake and a quarantine by the EPA (which received a waiver at the beginning of the film stating that it "strenuously objects" to its depiction in the movie) is saved from the slaughter when he insists that you can’t kill him if he’s wearing people clothes. It’s almost an anti-war statement, just involving swine instead of Iraqis and George Dubya. Racing the clock to save the town and his marriage from complete destruction (after a game of Grand Theft Walrus at an Alaskan bar), Homer mushes home. It’s amazing that the old faithfuls work to make a movie not a monkey out of the long-gestating full-length idea. Matt Groening deserves a drink.
