The Simpsons Movie 2007

Mark Rahner, Seattle Times: The long-awaited Simpsons feature film does not eat my shorts. Doesn't set 'em on fire, either. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The Simpsons Movie is comparatively minor. But it's hard not to like it. And in both senses of the phrase, America keeps asking for it. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: It's a strange path for the series' star writers to have chosen -- this idea that more existential meant better. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The good news is, The Simpsons Movie is just like the TV show, whereas the bad news is, it's just like the TV show. Read more

Joanne Kaufman, Wall Street Journal: Hurray for Homer. Long may he rave. Read more

Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The Simpsons Movie isn't anything special and certainly not the creative spark necessary to jump-start what for years has been a sagging show. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: It isn't the best movie ever, nor will it make fans forget the show's early-'90s golden years, but audiences will probably be too busy laughing to complain about any shortcomings. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: Even casual Simpsons fans will find plenty to chortle over, right through the closing credits. There are plenty of Hollywood comedies that can't say the same. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: That the show hasn't sailed off into the seas of complacency after all these years is a miracle. But the movie feels a little complacent and stuck. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: This long-awaited movie adaptation has plenty of laughs, plus an assortment of milestones for fans. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: It's subversively hilarious as well as strangely touching, and it features a scene in which Homer is directed across the landscape by the twin shadows of a woman's mountainous chest. Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: Nobody should have a cow. Bigger and longer don't always mean better, but The Simpsons Movie is still a cut above. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The movie is best when it just riffs on our compacted memories of the past 18 years of episodes. Fortunately, that's most of the time. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: The Simpsons concept in feature length is just as reassuringly startling in its nonstop irreverence as the best of the weekly TV droppings. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: The Simpsons is pretty much exactly the movie everyone hoped it would be -- fast, funny and filled with a thousand quickie jokes and odd angles that enhance the central story without distracting from it. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Turns out what they've done is make everything bigger, longer, and uncut, but let Homer be Homer, an average American screwup in a recognizable, screwed-up world of hypocrisy and lardy foodstuffs. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Go on, sucker, buy your ticket. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: You didn't think The Simpsons would sprain its funny bone on the way to the multiplex did you? Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: A clever and spirited big-screen version of its better-known small-screen cousin. Read more

Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News: The movie isn't a disaster, just a disappointment. Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: There were plenty of decent jokes, but I've already forgotten most of them; I suspect within a month's time I'll be hard pressed to recall much about the movie at all beyond a vague sense of disappointment. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: ...may be less potty-mouthed than South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, but it takes aim at its middle-American milieu with a towel-snapping glee that is just as effective in reducing its audience to cheerfully willing victims. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The incomparable gang at full length for the first time, with enough jokes, satire, nonsense, and sentiment to justify the eighty-eight minutes. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Doesn't make the existential leap to the big screen, and it doesn't have the density of gags or the lunatic free-association of the best episodes. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The movie's ultimate message is about family, and its most basic promise -- to make us laugh -- is one it delivers on more reliably than any of the other big movies this summer. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: A very funny, solidly entertaining movie that, despite its unshakable obsesion with undergarments, is as sweet as a Kwik-E-Mart Squishee. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The Simpsons Movie is full of the anarchic, generous, good-natured humor that is the show's enduring signature. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: The Simpsons Movie is finally here. And guess what? It's funny. But not that funny. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: ...what The Simpsons Movie does -- and does well -- is to revisit the series' most enduring situations and themes while upping the ante just enough to lend everything a new level of suspense. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: While nothing in this motion picture quite matches the television series at its early best, this is more of a throwback than a throw-away. It's wittier and more energetic than anything that has appeared on FOX in quite a few years. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There's something about the Simpsons that's radical and simple at the same time, subversive and good-hearted, offensive without really meaning to be. It's a nice balancing act. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: This one feels incomplete, an underachiever still searching for a real reason to exist beyond enriching a fat franchise. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The picture works because, despite the fact that it took nearly six years for the filmmakers to bring it to the screen, it doesn't strive for greatness. It's fleet, concise and clever in a nut-ball way. Read more

David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle: No one will be bored with the feature film, but everyone who knows the show well will have a nagging feeling that something is missing. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: The Simpsons Movie is as hard to critique as it is to resist. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: This is The Simpsons which, with its first big-screen effort, is underachieving and proud of it, man. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: Some 10 years after expected, The Simpsons Movie couldn't give a doodle in a doughnut hole about expectations anyway. It may deliver what we've already got, but it leaves no doubt why we got it in the first place. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: It was worth waiting for. Read more

Ben Walters, Time Out: The Simpsons Movie does not feel at sea on the big screen and, crucially, it is very funny. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: If you like the TV show, you're going to love the movie. Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: Put simply, if somebody had to make a Simpsons movie, this is pretty much what it should be -- clever, irreverent, satirical and outfitted with a larger-than-22-minutes plot. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It's really one of the best movies of the year. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: While The Simpsons Movie is -- like the TV show has become -- too much a caricature of itself, it still possesses good cheer, an aversion to self-seriousness and manic energy for stuffing the screen with layers of humor. Read more