> cosmicpenguin.net

I felt a lot of emotions in the theater tonight. Of them all, I think that thirst, hunger and trepidation won handily. The first I solved with a small Coke, and the second with Butterfinger bites (how appropriate!). The third could only be calmed by the movie we were about to watch. Many years I have been a Simpsons geek, lover of the old episodes, hater of the new, buyer of much merchandise, cursed the name Scully, and watched the episodes God only knows how many times. Would the movie invoke the heady days of the classic episodes like "Homer the Heretic", or "Streetcar named Marge", or even "You only Move Twice"? Or would it be everything my fellow old-timers have come to hate - jerkass Homer mailing in the lines from a focus group driven writing staff blinded by the apparent success of potty humor straight from the pages of Family Guy and South Park? Well, jump through the spoiler break to find out.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, some words of advice. First, go. Its worth it. Second, keep your eyes open - there are many treasures awaiting a real Simpsons geek. Thirdly, stay all the way through the credits (and I mean, all the way). Spoilers lay beyond the break.....

I figured I could do this review like we used to review the episodes, back before the Simpsons-L list was invaded by a bunch of people who typed sentence fragments peppered liberally with LOL and OMG. But I'm not going to do that - undoubtedly you've either seen the movie, or you don't care to see it, so either way, describing it to you is a waste of my time, and yours.

First of all, from the pure geek standpoint, I really appreciated how many ex-characters they managed to cram into the town shots. I'll bet when its all said and done and freeze framed, every character from the show was represented in some way. I noticed Brad Goodman, Little Pete, Stampy, Otto's girlfriend Becky, Mr. Lampley and others. That satisfied my need forinside humor without being to heavy handed about it. The only other geekish nod that I noticed right off the bat was the ambulance at the gorge, still crashed into that tree. I'm sure there were others though, and my fellow geeks will make sure we see them all.

One of the interesting things to me has been that I've always held the show to a different standard of humor then others. They may do things that are funny in other contexts, but when set against the Simpson universe, they only make me sad and angry. That was my biggest concern with the movie, that in order to try to get big laughs, they would invariably have to abandon the Simpsons canon, satisfying the general public, but pissing off your average fanatic. Discovering that my fears were unfounded was ultimately the most satisfying part of this movie to me. The laughs were big, but they stayed true to character (and canon).

In fact, I think "true to character" might actually be the overarching theme of the movie (and this review). They kept the characters even handed. It wasn't overly Bart heavy or Homer heavy. Marge had been toned down from her current television level of super-nag to the quietly strong partner of the early years. Lisa wasn't overly fanatical in an Earth First! sort of way, but she still maintained her beliefs. Maggie was a little bit more wise beyond her years then she should have been - I've always preferred her when she was just a baby. But I'll take that over a jerkass Homer every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.

Even more important then the family was the way the movie treated the townspeople. Over the years, the various Springfield residents had slowly acquired nearly a co-starring role in the show, to the point where the writers seemed compelled to include Dr. Hibbert or Apu or Wiggum, just to get the marketable catchphrase in there. In particular, Mr. Burns seemed to be particuarlly abused for even the most trival plot twist. I think the writers were sensitve to that, and happily they returned the townspeople to their classic role of participating on the edge of the action, some more important then others. The important characters were pointed out in subtle and quiet ways, and the others just reacted to whatever silly stuff was happening. I think this was a very clever twist to the movie - the minor characters were familiar, so it felt good to have them there, but by the same token they were familiar enough that we didn't have to spend any time on their stories - which left more time for the main action.

Which brings us to the story itself. All in all, I liked it. When I first found out about the pig in the movie trailers, I was very nervous - who can forget Duncan from S-S-G (try as we might)? Refreshingly, the pig was used in a subtle way, and completely dropped when he wasn't needed, and he wasn't part of the final solution to the story. We can all imagine a Scully era finale with the pig dressed as the Red Baron from Snoopy arriving in a dirigible and taking the bomb to safety. Too often they stooped to that level - that they didn't here, even when they could have, spoke volumes.

The whole story was, for the most part, believable in a Simpson's sort of way. They had side plots, but they didn't detract too much from the main story. That the family would find refuge in Alaska seemed right to me (better then Homer's original plan to live under the sea). And in the end, Homer eventually did the right thing, and it all closed up with a classic ending, circa Season 2 - Kind of a "Duffless" ending, with a twist.

There were some little things that I really didn't care for, but I never really felt that a single scene left me wanting more. Among the things that I disliked - The cat lady's obligatory appearance, the "boob" angle on the Eskimo lady, and Marge's uncharacteristic "Goddamn" at the end. Strangely, while I didn't like that, I did get a kick out of Homer's middle fingers as he descended into the sink hole (something about that seemed properly Homeresque to me), and the totally unexpected, but amazingly funny appearance of Bart's dingle. Normally, I would complain about the "obligatory penis reference" from the Scully years, but in this case, the preceding sequence was so well done, and the shot was so sudden and unexpected, that it seemed humorous, and dare I say, proper, for that particular moment in the movie?

All in all, I think its fair to say that I really dug the movie on multiple levels. Albert Brooks did a fine job (and really, if there was to be any guest star in the movie, it had to be him). They obviously went out of their way to appeal to the geeks, but they also made a good show that appealed to my non-Simpsons savy friends. I was glad to see Fat Tony make an appearance, and I was equally glad that I didn't notice any of the Phil Hartman characters in the crowd, as was rumored earlier. But most of all, I'm happy that the story indeed hearkened back to the classic days of the Simpson saga. It was funny, sometimes a little edgy, some times a little goofy, but there was real substance there. Perhaps the greatest complement I can give the movie is simply this - it made this old Simpsons geek happy. And isn't that why we started watching in the first place?