Homer's Odyssey A D'Ohnut!

This is really a film for young ones rather than the more discerning veteran Simpsons fan of intelligent irreverent comedy and black humour we have all come to love since its inception in 1990 (I still remember watching the early Simpsons on the Tracey Ullman show back in 1987!!!!). The movie felt like 4 regular TV episodes stitched together (which wasn’t a totally bad thing considering the consistently high calibre of the show over 18 years but it did sag somewhat in the middle and towards the fag end of the film) with a number of weak side plot lines petering out. I felt the environmental storyline alone was not sustainable for a full 87 minutes…and opportunities to expand other characters’ stories or to give the movie a bigger bang with biting satire was curiously and diffidently left out altogether. Several scenes referred to or revisited previous episodes, so long time fans will appreciate the gags better than those who have not watched the series faithfully. But even though the gag rate was good enough at times to match Airplane! with a few laugh out loud moments, the better TV episodes were more biting in its social satire. Still, the effort was commendable given the impossibly high expectations…and at least it was a relief from watching yet another computer generated penguin dancing in front of our retinas.

If you are interested, wait for the end credits to hear what Maggie utters. Better yet, wait for the DVD when all the deleted scenes (enough to fill at least another two hours) gets compiled by Matt Groening.