The Bob's Burgers Movie

I'm wondering if I've seen too many movies lately. Because of streaming I have probably seen more movies in the past year than I did during the rest of my life. That sounds ridiculous compared to most people, but it also feels true. I have always been a TV guy, and movies have always been secondary in my entertainment consumption. I have caught up a LOT in the last year or so, and seen movies I should have seen long before this. What this has done has gotten me a bit used to movies.

I used to almost always give movies positive reviews, especially upon first seeing them. I'm wondering if I was still a relative movie novice if I would have liked this movie more. I suspect so. But I don't just think it's a weak effort for a movie now. I can compare it to the South Park, Beavis And Butt-Head, and The Simpsons movies and it's worse than all of them. And this is coming from someone who wasn't bowled over by The Simpsons Movie. But I think this movie had a LOT of things working against it.

Making it a musical was a huge mistake. It might not have been if they had hired someone like Marc Shaiman like Trey Parker did, but Loren Bouchard wrote the songs himself. Even knowing it was a big(ger)-budget movie, the songs are only slightly less lousy than the terrible songs on the TV show. And the worst part about making it a musical (and something even Shaiman wouldn't be able to fix) and why Bouchard needs his head examined is that not a single member of the cast it a legitimately good singer. John Roberts can sing rather theatrically. But Linda's voice still sounds awful.

I also would be remiss pointing out that the mystery sucks. We see a third Fischoeder we're never met before, (he's basically the audience's only suspect), and the movie expects us to be as shocked as Louise is at the reveal. No. No. That's not okay and just because Bob's Burgers is a silly comedy doesn't ever make it okay.

One of the problems of the movie that it shares with The Simpsons Movie is I don't feel like there was a huge moment that the audience wanted to see that they couldn't see on TV. In the South Park movie they shocked us by revealing Kenny's face and unmuffled voice. By the end of this I was like, "Are they really stupid enough to NOT show us Louise without the bunny ears after all that?" The answer is apparently yes. They are.

I have to confess some of the jokes are funny. The thing is, the jokes on the show are EQUALLY funny, and they don't have to make a theatrical movie to tell them.

From what I understand this was well-received by both fans and critics. Speaking as a viewer and fan of Bob's Burgers, I don't think a single thing in the movie justified a big-screen outing. Maybe if we had seen the top of Louise's head, I'd feel differently, but here we are. It was all right but that's the best I can say for it. ***.