During the first fifteen minutes of “The Simpsons Movie,” not only did I laugh so hard that my stomach was starting to hurt, but I thought to myself gleefully, “Hmmmm, this movie is going to be a religion bloggers dream!”
The story starts off with Marge, Homer and company arriving to church late–to hilarious, standard issue Homer-commentary. And chaos immediately ensues when Gramps has a “religious experience” during the service and starts spouting prophetic statements in between what could only be understood as a spoof on speaking in tongues. As Homer quickly flips through the Bible in search of help, quipping with dismay “What are we gonna do? There aren’t any answers in here!” (he, he), Marge is the only person to take Gramps’ rather incomprehensible babbling seriously.
Here is about where the hilarity ends.
“The Simpsons Movie” does have funny moments throughout, but clocking in at 105 minutes, audiences may be wishing that the writers had stuck to the 30 minute sitcom format. After the initial laughs, the movie drags on (and on) and never picks up its initial giddiness again. It would be better titled “The Simpsons Family Adventure,” since that is what the movie really is. Here are the basics: Lisa has a cause; the town takes it up. Homer screws everything up; the family is in trouble as a result. And then Homer has to figure out how to fix his mess.
Oh, if only they’d stopped at minute 15. And alas, there was only about one additional minute to make a religion blogger perk up again: Homer goes on a vision quest. By that point though, my only thought was, “Hmmm. Note to self: Vision Quest. Whatever.”
posted July 30, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Sorry, can’t agree. I thought the movie was hilarous throughout.
In some ways, the most pleasant surprise was that Ned Flanders is presented as a genuinely noble, compassionate character. Oh, he is flawed, but in ways the are certainly no worse than the rest of the folks in Springfield.
It’s refreshing to see an overtly Christian character not portrayed as either a psychopath or an utterly vile hypocrite. Ned has his issues, but he tries hard to beloving and even to help people who show him little else buy contempt.
God knows the world would not be perfect if everyone was like Ned…but it would be a lot better.
posted July 30, 2007 at 9:54 pm
D’oh! The above post has some confusing typos. Heres’ a correction…
It’s refreshing to see an overtly Christian character not portrayed as either a psychopath or an utterly vile hypocrite. Ned has his issues, but he tries hard to be loving and even to help people who show him little else but contempt.
(I was distracted when Spiderpig swooped by…)
posted July 31, 2007 at 10:59 am
My thoughts on the Simpson movie are simply if anyone was paying attention; the Earth is in trouble and we need to do something now!