The Simpsons Movie isn’t just a good overlong episode of the TV show (actually the plot is nothing that special or different) but makes all the things that make the TV show work seem bigger, the jokes on current social and political issues, the relationships between the characters and the way we feel about them have all increased in emotional as well as visual size. And one has the feeling that unlike many other laugh-a-minute films The Simpsons Movie is liable to age well. There are plenty of current events and pop cultural references but the humor is largely simply well-written, timeless one-liners and sight gags. In short this is the funniest movie I’ve seen this summer and in many ways one of the most satisfying. It effortlessly translates a major pop culture institution into the only territory it hasn’t conquered so far. Long live the Simpsons and the residents of Springfield.

The story makes Homer the fall guy once again, this time it’s for an environmental catastrophe that brings the full wrath of the EPA down on the town of Springfield which is sealed in a huge dome. After being chased out of town Homer and his family take up residence in Alaska only to find themselves called back to help rescue Springfield which the government has decided to blow up. Like I said there’s nothing special about the plot here. But as a rather forgettable summer entertainment you could do way worse. At 87 minutes The Simpsons Movie is going a long way towards proving that shorter movies can be more satisfying than bloated spectacles.

Not that there aren’t lots of explosions etc. One difficulty of going from TV to big screen is the need to maintain the internal consistency of the universe Springfield represents. A live action Simpsons probably wouldn’t have worked because there is simply no way the show could survive in its original form. Everything would have had to change to accommodate the medium. In this larger than life animated form the creators and writers find a middle ground taking advantage of a larger canvas and budget without pushing the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. Except for the death of one character we pretty much get what we expect from a solid episode of the show. If the film is at all brilliant it’s mainly because of the way it balances looking back at where the characters of Springfield have been and the possibilities animated FX and spectacle can provide.

There are references to famed episodes such as the one where Homer attempts to jump Springfield gorge, but we also spend time in new haunts and situations that because they are in wide screen and offered in selectively dizzying camera movement/angles steadfastly belong to world of movies and could not work simply as an episode of the show. Marge chases a drunken Bart around a hotel room, Homer rides a motorcycle around and around a metal ball cage, the family encounters an impossibly beautiful Alaskan vista- none of these moments as filmed would work as well on TV.

A word should be said about the music as well. I have already put The Simpsons Movie on the shortlist for both animated feature of the year and soundtrack of the year. The former for obvious reasons and latter because of a relentlessly creative approach by Hans Zimmer who, it should be remembered, also wrote Video Killed The Radio Star all those many pre MTV years ago. It’s been a long time since the SCORE to a film made me life and this one did more than once.