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The 'Yellow Family' comes to town

HOMER BECOMES enamoured with a new pet pig and his overriding love of doughnuts and difficulty in listening to Marge's advice to dispose of the pig's silo full of wastes sees him dump the toxic concoction in Springfield Lake causing an environmental disaster.

D’Oh! It’s everything you would expect from an episode of 'The Simpsons' and that is exactly why anyone who has ever been a fan of the yellow family will love the movie.

It doesn't try and do anything crazy or modern with graphics or change the feel of the 18-year-running TV series.

As creator Matt Groening has said, the crew deliberately tried to keep the movie imperfect. 'The Simpsons Movie' is simply a big screen version with a bigger plot than the series but not for a moment is that to suggest the movie doesn’t succeed.

That the movie is imperfect and uses the old cartoon style, hasn’t inhibited the crew in tinkering with every single joke and twist and turn to the plot. As writer and producer James L. Brooks said: "Most of all, we wanted a 'Simpsons' movie to be a real movie-going experience for the audience, while staying true to what we do with the show. We were wary of straying too far uptown."

The audience isn’t spared a moment with the quick wit hitting them from the moment they sit down. It is the lack of political correctness or cautiousness around certain topics that has always set the series apart that is present here on a grand scale.

It includes the advertising banner at the bottom of the screen inviting audience members to watch a Fox TV series and confessing: "That's right, we even advertise our shows during movies." Homer’s creation of an environmental disaster requires US President Arnold Schwarzenegger and Environmental Protection Agency head Russ Cargill to step in.

"You know sir," Cargill tells the president, "when you made me head of the EPA, you were applauded for appointing one of the most successful men in America to the least successful agency in government. And why did I take the job? Because I’m a rich man who wanted to give something back. Not the money, but something."

And of course, the audience is satisfied with its share of 'd’ohs' from Homer and 'Okily-dokilys' from Flanders.

Although Homer opens the movie calling the audience 'giant suckers' for seeing the movie when they can see episodes for free, the unstoppable irreverent humour that is The Simpsons at its ultimate best is what the movie is all about.