Too many cooks don’t spoil the broth

There is no question anymore about movie-goers paying to see something they can get for free on television. They do it all the time. Versions of Superman, X-Men, Transformers, etc., etc. all come out regularly on TV. But then, the movies usually feature live actors and truly spectacular scenes that you can never fully enjoy on the small screen. So you watch the shows on TV and then occasionally treat yourself to an event movie.

This must be the reason why despite its over 18 years of success on television, there had been no move to translate The Simpsons into the big screen. Can you turn an animated sitcom into a thrilling adventure? Remember the debacle of The Flintstones. Can you imagine the series with live actors? Who do you think can play Bart or Lisa or Homer or any member of their dysfunctional family? Teri Hatcher as Marge? No, it has to stay animated. Again, remember The Flintstones. And what do you do by way of spectacle? A pig walking on the ceiling? I can’t think of any aspect of life in Springfield would bring out superheroes and eye-popping stunts? Bart nude on a skateboard, perhaps.

But they finally did it. The Simpsons Movie is now in the theaters and it is great. And would you believe that the only character it has that is endowed with some supernatural powers is a Native American woman with big boobs. Everything else, magnified hundreds of times over, works. Truth to tell, just seeing Homer and his family, all large and yellow on the screen, is spectacle enough.

How did they do it? The same way creator Matt Groening and everybody behind The Simpsons have been doing all these years. That is by writing the funniest and most intelligent send up of what is familiar. In this case, it is life in the home of a typical American household in a typical American town and their reaction to people and circumstances that sometimes makes their daily lives extraordinary.

Then get the jokes going, current and biting, crackling even. With nearly two hours to tell the story instead of the usual 20 or so minutes every week, the writers, and there were 11 of them in the credits, had a real ball. This movie is proof that too many cooks, if they are the best, do not spoil the broth and that a good script is still the best basis for good filmmaking.

As in most of the TV episodes, at the heart of the plot is Homer, who in one of his selfish, adolescent moments sets off a series of events that could destroy Springfield forever. He has this pig named Spider-pig/ Harry Plopper, which he saved from the slaughterhouse. His wife Marge tells him to get rid of the pig’s plop safely but Homer dumps this into the already heavily polluted lake just because he is in a hurry to score free donuts. The lake becomes an environmental disaster zone that affects the whole of Springfield. The situation was so bad that the White House decides to totally annihilate the town before it contaminates the country.

Of course, because, this is The Simpsons, that plot branches out to all sorts of directions and logic is suspended. Good, if you can make head or tail of what is going on. If not, I still say that it does not really matter. It is lots of fun, cynical, sublime, gross, endearing, irreverent and surprisingly reassuring. Thanks to years of TV watching, Homer, Marge, their children, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, the baby, their neighbors, friends and all those other characters now seem like old friends you are happy to see in a larger than life scenario.

Happy indeed is the movie-goer who will watch The Simpsons Movie most especially if he keeps a sharp eye and an even sharper ear out for all the gags. These come from all over and cannot seem to stop. Here is a case of one viewing is not enough and I am sure you will still discover new things to laugh about while watching the film on free TV way into the future. It is such a joy that it makes you wish that all films, particularly the big franchise titles, could be as well-written as this one.

Knowledge of popular culture and current events adds to the pleasure. Then you would know a president named Arnold Schwarzzeneger who says “I vos elected to lead, not read.” Why Bart is made to write “I will not illegally download this movie” a hundred times on the blackboard. And can you guess what baby Maggie’s first word is? “Sequel.” But it is not really a prerequisite. The gag that still cracks me up is one that needs no I.Q of 130 to appreciate. Everybody now, “Spider-pig, Spider-pig….”