40
The message is just as clear with Simpsonian antics -- if it ain't broke, don't make a movie…
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
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, capable (just barely) of sustaining a narrative roughly four times the length of a standard episode.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
It's caustic, irreverent, constantly amusing and a tiny bit rude. Not a lot, though. This isn't the "Beavis and Butt-Head" or "South Park" movie. It's almost -- dare I say it -- charming.
75
Though it does have a handful of dirty jokes meant to earn the audience-pleasing PG-13 rating and features Marge swearing, it falls short of classic status.
88
Charlotte Observer by Lawrence Toppman
The result is two-tiered humor, broad enough to appeal to anybody but overlaid with jokes that will be funnier if you know the show.
83
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
The best thing about this long-awaited feature-length project, a classic Simpsonian interplay of family psychology, social commentary, and brainy visual and verbal jokes tossed off at rat-a-tat speed, is how relaxed it manages to be.
75
Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips
It's hard not to like it. And in both senses of the phrase, America keeps asking for it.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The movie is funny, sassy and intelligent in that moronic Simpsons' way.
90
A 90-minute, years-in-the-making comic wind-up machine that begins by mocking its own audience for paying good money to see what it can watch at home for free and proceeds from there through the most wickedly funny arsenal of assaults on big government, organized religion and corporate America this side of "Borat."
63
It would be a stretch to call The Simpsons Movie more than a crisper, livelier-looking episode of the series. The change in mediums changes nothing.