The Simpsons Movie Review / by Allison James

The Simpsons. Once the unquestionable king of cartoon comedy, now currently in its 21st series. It took 12 for it to start declining in quality. Don't get me wrong, it's still watchable, but compared to its glory days 10-15 years ago, it's nothing.The Simpsons Movie is, in series terms, on a par with Series 13-15 - not a wreck, but not hilarious either. It certainly has its moments, but it feels a little too stretched out and at some points it feels like it's trying way too hard to get laughs (here's looking at you, Spiderpig).

In The Simpsons Movie, Lake Springfield is overcome with pollution. A plea from Lisa to the townfolk sees the lake completely fenced off to prevent further, catastrophic contamination. Homer, with the pig he acquired from a Krusty Burger advert, is looking to dump its vast amount of waste quickly to get to a donut giveaway. He chooses Lake Springfield. Alas, the excess polution results in Springfield becoming the most polluted city in America, and the President (Arnold Schwarzenegger, though not guest-voiced by him) blindly chooses a solution which sees the entirety of the city being isolated with a giant, "unbreakable" dome. When the residents discover Homer's to blame for this, they begin a manhunt which ends when the Simpsons discover a sinkhole in their back garden that sends them underneath and out of the dome.

Summary of the rest of the plot - Homer wins a truck (their car, of course, lost in Springfield), move to Alaska, Marge and the kids go back to try to save Springfield, Homer gets lonely and goes back also, and, well, Series 20 followed, so you can figure out if it was a success or not.

So, will regular viewers of The Simpsons be disappointed by the movie? If they've not seen much of the newer stuff, yes. If they have, probably not - it's an improvement on the recent episodes. I wouldn't go so far as to recommending The Simpsons Movie, but if you see it at a low price on DVD somewhere (I got my copy for £5), it's worth watching.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIawszTxNG4]

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