The Simpsons Movie (2007),directed by David Silverman, is definitely not the Simpsons at their best. Most of the things that make the Simpsons great on TV--the throwaway gags, the multiple plots, the zingers sent at the Fox network and at the U.S. government, and the incredible cast of supporting characters--are missing from the movie.

It's discouraging to realize how little David Silverman accomplished in the 87 minutes (basically four TV shows) with which he was able to work. Instead of giving us four times the fun, he gave us one quarter the fun. OK--the movie was overdue, and I guess any Simpsons movie is better than none, but this was an opportunity wasted.

After watching the film, I tried to understand what went wrong. The biggest single problem, in my opinion, is that the plot was too linear. The director and screenwriters forgot that we don't want the Simpsons plot to go from A to B to C. We want it to start at A and go to Q and W before it gets to C, if it ever gets to C at all.

Moreover, the movie makers chickened out. On TV they will take on any government institution. Here, the villainous government agency is the EPA. Plenty of government agencies are doing terrible things to the U.S., but I wouldn't exactly put the EPA at the top of the villain's list. As U.S. President, they chose a character meant to be Arnold Schwartzenegger. Now, there are plenty of ways to make fun of the Governor, but no one has suggested he's stupid and, furthermore, he's the one public character that can't become President. No real fun there.

So, if you're a Simpsons fan, and you have to see the movie, be warned. If you're not a Simpsons fan, buy the Season I DVD. Then, once you're hooked, you can safely see the film.

If you had some envy to simpsonize yourself for some Internet page, you will lose all envy after that film. The TV series is funny, caustic, at times slightly gore and trashy, in short it is titillating us in the few spots where we are always itchy, in secret of course. We were waiting for Bart's eating his shorts as usual and we only got a very prudish séance of streaking on a skate board. The main theme is pollution and we had been told that it was going to be awfully gory and we got Al Gore, well wrapped up in his fat and becoming an ecological terrorist in the hand of some bureaucrat of some environmental agency under the guidance of a president who was supposed to drag us down into the darkest layers of the political world and as for blackness and darkness we get a Swharzenegger that does not know how to read. Alaska is nicely polluted by oil companies. Sledge dogs rebel and abandon their master in the middle of nowhere. And we even get the seesaw humdrum banal triteness of "in American you can always make as much money as you want." The housing bubble is there to prove it: you can for sure make as much money as you want even with slimy loans, but then everyone in the world has to foot the bill when the enterprising individuals who did it crash and hit the bottom of a bottomless abyss. Mister director, Mister producer, you can do better I am sure, you could do better if you tried, you could have done better if you had really wanted, you should have done better if you had known the cinema is not television. McLuhan taught me a long time ago that the medium is the message. And you did as if the medium did not mean anything at all. That is unrespectful of the audience.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

'The Simpsons' TV show is best in the business for plot twists, outrageous reversals, whiplash satire and one-liners, making the best episodes as satisfying as many great films. Topping that - or even matching it - with the long awaited movie was always going to be a challenge.

I was entertained but, truthfully, no more than a middling episode of the series. The richness of the Springfield lore and background characters is sidelined to focus on the family itself, with too much Homer in particular - yes, I never thought I'd say that, but it's true.

We love 'The Simpsons' for its frenetic pace; it's clear here the writers struggled with the structure for a longer format. Possibly a Robert Altman / 'Nashville' approach would have worked better, or maybe something like "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", allowing us to see the great range of characters and supporting a stronger, over-arching story.

The decision to focus almost exclusively on the family itself brought out the TV show's occasional tendency towards sentimentality - Colin & Lisa? Went nowhere. Flanders & Bart? Didn't buy it for a second. Oval Office scenes? Rainer Wolfcastle would have been funnier, or GWB passing the buck that bit edgier. This isn't meant to be The Waltons!

More playfulness with the film format itself would have been welcome too - the opening 'Itchy & Scratchy' sequence and Homer's response were great but, as it turned out, too little too early for the film seldom ventured from the straight & narrow thereafter. Maybe Terry Gilliam to direct Simpsons II?

Early rumours (some time ago, I know) suggested the Simpsons Movie would be the final word on the show, but the commitment to another couple of seasons meant the film lost that seat-of-the-pants, anything-could-happen edge. I really believe the team should have one last hurrah with a final movie. Just don't try to jump the shark - blast it out of the water!

Get radical, guys - that's when you're at your best!