'The Simpsons Movie' strains to bring the show's charms to the big screen

Yeah, Otto inhales. Sure, Bart flashes his junk. But these PG-13 novelties aside, there's precious little in "The Simpsons Movie" to warrant mandatory viewing by hard-core devotees. Offhand, I can think of two- or three-dozen episodes of Matt Groening's long-running Fox animated sitcom that pack more laughs into 30 commercial-padded minutes than this big-screen snoozer does in its entirety.

In a general sense, "The Simpsons Movie" falls prey to the same comedic retrovirus that has plagued the TV series in recent years: recycled storytelling, strained humor, an overabundance of celebrity cameos (aging punk revivalists Green Day alight on Springfield; so does a certain beloved Hollywood Everyman who shall remain nameless.)

Consider the premise, slapped together by Groening, executive producer James L. Brooks, longtime writer/producer Al Jean and eight other men who receive screenwriting credits: Homer (Dan Castellaneta), in a blind rush to score free doughnuts downtown, dumps a silo of pig feces into Lake Springfield, already pushed to dangerously toxic extremes by Mr. Burns' nuclear plant, Fat Tony's corpse-dumping, empty Duff bottles, and other foulness from "America's most polluted city."

Alerted to the crisis when a mutated, multi-eyed frog falls into the hands of hazmat-suited federal agents, the head of the EPA (Albert Brooks) persuades President Schwarzenegger (Harry Shearer) to quarantine Springfield under a giant, transparent bubble-dome. High jinks ensue, the family escapes to Alaska, Homer reconsiders his self-centered ways, verse, chorus, verse.

Homer's devotion to his new pet pig makes for a happily absurd spectacle (at one point, he looks to lock lips with his porcine pal), but is it funnier than the "Lisa Gets an 'A' " episode in which he dotes over a pet lobster named Pinchy?

Not really.

Similarly, environmental issues have received sharper, less labored treatment in the series - in particular, the "Old Man and the Lisa" episode in season eight. Here, do-gooder Lisa (Yeardley Smith) gets on a scissor-lift and presents a slide-show called "An Irritating Truth." In the show, she watches in horror as vulturine billionaire Montgomery Burns (Shearer, again) converts his recycling business into a dolphin-to-dog-food processing plant.

One suspects that Groening and company - including director David Silverman ("Monsters Inc.), brought on board strictly for his technical skill - may have erred on the side of allegory. Could the dome that imprisons Springfield be, say, a metaphor for government impotence and callousness in the face of domestic disaster? Springfield's riot-ruined neighborhoods do suggest a Katrina-like state of disrepair. Hmmm.

As in many of the best "Simpsons" episodes, Homer is forced to reckon with his inadequacies as a husband and father - which, to his horror, drive Bart (Nancy Cartwright) into the surrogate embrace of Bible-thumping neighborino Ned Flanders (Shearer). It's a stock "Simpsons" process, but one that plays more cleverly and sweetly in so many episodes that it seems futile to list them here.

Then again, one could conduct a detailed, volumes-long comparative study of the movie and TV series, and come to the same conclusion: "The Simpsons Movie" simply doesn't feel like the exclamatory endpoint of a long and prodigiously influential comedy tradition. After 18 seasons, the show has less fizz than a pint of day-old Duff, anybody can see that.

And this is the grand finale?

D'oh, indeed.

'The Simpsons Movie'

Stars: The voices of Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, Julie Kavner, Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria, Yeardley Smith, Albert Brooks

Behind the scenes: Directed by David Silverman, from a script by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder and Jon Vitti

Rating: PG-13 for irreverent humor throughout

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes

Grade: C-