The Simpsons Movie (2007, David Silverman)

I laughed fairly steadily throughout this, but didn't laugh as hard as I did during the greatest of the classic-years episodes. The problem isn't so much the jokes aren't there as that they don't have the same spark, the inspiration that makes them come off both as inevitable and out of left field. Now you get some of the former, some of the latter, but rarely both. I honestly can't imagine this holding up on multiple viewings, which seems strange for a phenomenon that owes much of its enduring success to syndication. It's been scarcely four hours since I saw this, and the only quote I remember that gives me that old feeling is, "Have you ever been mad without power? It's boring! Nobody listens to you?" Oh, and would it have killed them to include some kind of tribute to Phil Hartman? Rating: 6 out of 10.