During the first fifteen minutes of “The Simpsons Movie,” not only did I laugh so hard that my stomach was starting to hurt, but I thought to myself gleefully, “Hmmmm, this movie is going to be a religion bloggers dream!”
The story starts off with Marge, Homer and company arriving to church late–to hilarious, standard issue Homer-commentary. And chaos immediately ensues when Gramps has a “religious experience” during the service and starts spouting prophetic statements in between what could only be understood as a spoof on speaking in tongues. As Homer quickly flips through the Bible in search of help, quipping with dismay “What are we gonna do? There aren’t any answers in here!” (he, he), Marge is the only person to take Gramps’ rather incomprehensible babbling seriously.
Here is about where the hilarity ends.

“The Simpsons Movie” does have funny moments throughout, but clocking in at 105 minutes, audiences may be wishing that the writers had stuck to the 30 minute sitcom format. After the initial laughs, the movie drags on (and on) and never picks up its initial giddiness again. It would be better titled “The Simpsons Family Adventure,” since that is what the movie really is. Here are the basics: Lisa has a cause; the town takes it up. Homer screws everything up; the family is in trouble as a result. And then Homer has to figure out how to fix his mess.
Oh, if only they’d stopped at minute 15. And alas, there was only about one additional minute to make a religion blogger perk up again: Homer goes on a vision quest. By that point though, my only thought was, “Hmmm. Note to self: Vision Quest. Whatever.”