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WE'RE surely all inured by now to the hype that surrounds the release of yet another "must-see" movie.
It's almost always one big overblown tease. You get the toys in the cereal packets, the TV specials where celebrities blather on about their wacky voice-overs, then some superhero reveals himself as a luvvie wimp on a chat show.
Finally the film opens, and you wonder what all the fuss was about. Was Shrek the Third as good as you'd been led to believe? Was the latest Fantastic Four adventure really all that fantastic? Thought not.
The build-up to The Simpsons Movie has been low-key by comparison - a few posters, a (thankfully amusing) website, and not much else. In fact, the whole project has been shrouded in semi-secrecy.
Matt Groening and his creative crew obviously had the confidence not to push it. They knew they'd got something special on their hands - a full-length version of the most consistently funny TV cartoon family.
So were they right to let the work speak for itself? You bet.
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The film is a treat from beginning (an extended Itchy and Scratchy prologue) to end (ticking bomb, Springfield minutes from doom, only Homer can save the day. Doh!).
There's very little padding in between. In fact, many of the major players from the telly appear only fleetingly - Mr Burns, Barney, Principal Skinner, Selma and Patty, for example.
With brilliant sight gags (not least Bart, naked on a skateboard) and a sparkling screenplay (where Homer has most of the best lines), The Simpsons Movie would have lived up to the hype - had there been any, of course.
It really is perfectly pitched for children, from six to 16, and their parents too.
Unlike many lesser films (Shark Tale springs instantly to mind), the grown-ups aren't patronised with little in-jokes. The Simpsons is funny on so many levels, and uniquely accessible.
The plot is simple, and even has a laudable environmental message. Springfield is home to the planet's most polluted lake, until saintly Lisa (and her squeaky clean boyfriend, Colin) ride to the rescue.
But it only needs one idiot to tip the environmental balance. Without giving too much away, let's just say that Homer has adopted a pet pig (listen out for the deliriously silly Spider-Pig Song) with an over-active digestive system...
Homer is the undoubted star of the show. Never the sharpest knife in the drawer, his stupidity plumbs new depths. His relationships with Marge and Bart are, as so often on TV, severely under threat because of that cavernous space between his ears.
But Bart also has a big part to play, as director David Silverman wisely decides not to compromise the plot by trying to be too clever or over-indulgent.
There are a couple of the flights of fantasy that were such a feature of the later TV shows, but guest cameos are kept to a minimum (a self-mocking Tom Hanks and Green Day hog the honours) while the parodies are pin sharp although sparingly used.
I got the feeling from some of the later 24-minute shows that there was too much going on, that the makers were trying to cram too much into too little time (the one where Tony Blair took part, for instance), and that the national stereotyping had crossed over from irony to laziness.
Here, with more time (87 minutes) and a much bigger screen to fill, the result is a film with a staggering sureness of touch. Not a second is wasted, and every single frame is made to count. It looks good too.
The Simpsons may still be firmly rooted in Springfield, and miraculously remain the same age (although Maggie is alarmingly mature for a dummy-sucking toddler) - but they've come a long way from those first jerky appearances on The Tracey Ullman Show 20 years ago.
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