The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Finally, after much anticipation, I paid $4.20 to head to the theatre to take in The Simpsons Movie. By the way, that's a great price to pay to see a flick. If you don't mind dealing with the large crowds on Tuesdays, it's definitely worth it.

The run time is 90 minutes or so, which is roughly 4 episodes of the Simpsons without commercials. If this movie's jokes were condensed to 30 minutes, it could be the funniest episode ever aired. But it stretches out the plot, tries to cram screen time for every character in the Simpsons (for example, the part in the trailer where Apu asks Mr. Burns to "look into your heart" is the only scene he's in and any other character could have easily done that part), and a lot of the good jokes are given away in the commercials.

So does this movie live up to the hype? Probably not. But is it enjoyable? Absolutely. There are many funny parts and moments where I laughed out loud. There are some instances though where the scenes drag and there are simply no laughs. I guess you can't expect it to hit every time, but when the Simpsons played on TV during its heyday in the early 90s, it did seem to nail every joke in the script. I haven't seen too many episodes for the last 7 or 8 years, and never make an effort to watch the new ones they air Sunday nights. So it's probably not as good as it was in its prime, but still solid nonetheless.

This could be one of those movies that get better with time. I remember when I first watched Monty Python's Meaning of Life and The Holy Grail. I smiled, some laughs, nothing more. But talking about it with others, reciting the lines and visiting it again and again made the movie better. I think The Simpsons Movie just may fit under that same category.

Score: 7/10 (you saw that coming!)