The Simpsons Movie.

As I walked into the foyer of the cinema last night the smell of popcorn hit me right in the face. Smells are like no other sense. They can resurface memories which you had buried under years of experiences as if they only happened yesterday. Popcorn reminds me of a childhood visits to the cinema. Visits which had a wide-eyed excitement when watching films like ET or Jurassic Park. Films which made fantasy reality.

This is good because the film I'm going to see is The Simpsons Movie, a film that most people thought they would never see. And it looks amazing. The animation and attention to detail throughout are superb, the millions of dollars available to the producers have allowed Springfield to be made new again with a thorough spit polish shine on its skyline.

The film itself is a great vehicle for the antics of The Simpsons.. there are a lot of things that just cannot be achieved in a 20 minute episode, however, it never once feels like an extended version of the show. It is a film in its own right, a feat for the writers for sure.

At this point I have reached an impasse with my feelings about the film as the last 3-4 series of The Simpsons have been poor. Homer has sold himself out to buffonary instead of actually engaging the viewers as a character. Bart has also lost his shine as the young rascal in the family - his character is written much older than his age here, something which was more implicit in early Simpsons series.

The environmental plot seems tacked on in order to be relevant to the current time, and the main EPA agent villain is poorly characterised. Personally, I would have thought that he would have been more interesting had the writers decided to use him in the guise of the super-rich ego maniac Hank Scorpio from the series, with whom he shares a voice.

As a piece of animation, the film doesn’t have the luxury of papering over its cracks with amazing action sequences and set pieces - if the producers where to crash a car into a helicopter I doubt I would be too impressed, as its only ink and paper. To their credit, the production team haven't over relied on guest stars - Tom Hanks and Green Day are the only big name which are dropped, however maybe this is something that may have actually given the film a leg up, as seen in the last Austin Powers movie.

In making it to the big screen, the shows producers have in one sense made fantasy a reality; however the problems with the series are too great to make this anything more than a spectacle. Five years earlier and maybe this would have been something kids today associated with the smell of popcorn, but more likely this will be as short lived as any of today’s animation faire.

Two Stars. **.