PRESS VIEWS : THE SIMPSON MOVIE !

Film critics review The Simpsons Movie, as America's favourite dsyfunctional family hit the big screen for the first time.

BEWARE: film reviews may include spoilers.

THE GUARDIAN - Peter Bradshaw
The long-awaited movie has an environmental theme
So many movies promise what they could never deliver in a million years. The Simpsons movie gives you everything you could possibly want, and maybe it's a victim of its own gargantuan accomplishment.
85 minutes is not long enough to do justice to 17 years of comedy genius. It's still great stuff. Like Homer with his nachos, I could gobble it up until nightfall.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH - Tim Robey
The Simpsons Movie feels like a celebration of the show's sheer longevity, but it's a shame that it's not more of a cause for celebration in itself. This is a slick, crowd-pleasing escapade with lots of scattershot sight gags, and a damp squib of a suggestion at the end that, if all goes according to plan, we might be in line for a sequel.

THE TIMES - Kevin Maher
The Simpsons Movie is funny, clever and at times even hilarious (Bart skate-boarding naked through Springfield has to be the sight-gag of the summer). But sadly, it's also a minor movie and never more inspiring than the sum of its admittedly witty parts.
THE SUN - 'The Sneak'
Watching this fantastic movie is a completely different experience to just watching three Simpsons TV episodes back-to-back.
The cinema is filled with collective, infectious joy (apart from the bloke in front of The Sneak). If you want to re-live The Simpsons mass hysteria of the Nineties, go and watch this movie.

THE DAILY MIRROR
An extensive range of merchandise has already been produced
After 400 episodes, everyone's favourite yellow family finally show up for their first big screen outing. Having been with us for 20 years on the telly, it's been a long time coming. Alas, not long enough.
There's a great half-hour show rattling around in here somewhere, but the rest is padding at its very dullest. Given the anticipation - not to mention the hype - surrounding The Simpsons Movie, this has to be the most disappointing film of the year.
Still, it beats Transformers. Just.

THE INDEPENDENT - Anthony Quinn
In all honesty, it isn't quite the knockout we hoped for. The last third in particular feels sluggish, at least in comparison with the vivid rat-tat-tat rhythm of gags in the first 20 minutes.
Perhaps it's inevitable that when a show has set the bar so high, one will demand something more from a supersize incarnation.
Better to think of it as a restatement of classic Simpsons virtues - superb dialogue, inspired slapstick, quickfire wit - rather than reaching for higher peaks of comedy greatness. It's just fine, even if you do have to pay for it.

THE LA TIMES - Carina Chocano
In some ways, it reminded me of the final Seinfeld episode. As much as I laughed throughout, I kept wondering what was with all the emotional lessons. Strangest of all was Homer's retreat to the cave (or igloo, in this case), where he experiences an epiphany and sees himself clearly for the very first time.
In fact, The Simpsons Movie is basically a conversion narrative, in which Homer's eyes are finally opened to the error of his ways. The turnaround feels like the end of something - like, say, the series. Because where do you go from an (albeit briefly) enlightened Homer and sensitive Bart?
The only place I can think of is off into the sunset.

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER - Kirk Honeycutt
Laughs come in all sizes - large, medium, small and failed, the latter happening only seldom. While little has been gained in bringing The Simpsons to the screen, other than a bigger canvas requiring a much larger army of animators, it's still fun to enjoy the crew in this new setting.

WASHINGTON POST - Stephen Hunter
The genius is in the writing and in keeping all gambits created by the individual writers in sync... the piece has a tonal consistency and a narrative flow. A lost art in Hollywood? It's really one of the best movies of the year.
The Simpsons Movie is on general release in the UK and US.

BBC NEWS REPORT.