As a quiet, reserved fan of Family Guy I considered the idea of a movie to be quite a daunting thought. The prospect of watching 90 minutes of gags from a series that is tightly written into 25 minute chunks made me uneasy. It’s equally uneasy to wonder what FOX will do to The SImpsons movie, which will be either the greatest end or the biggest mistake to the series.

Family Guy the movie is subtitled the Story of Stewie Griffin, and focuses on the intelligent brat of a child with an upper-class mockery of an English accent. It’s a smart choice, since he is considered one of the main interests of humour in the series, the other two kids being less interesting.

Stewie is trying to find resolve in his life, being an infant that still wears nappies you can probably sympathise. After a tragic error in trying to kill a child at the local swimming pool, and instead being blown up himself, Stewie flashes to where he’ll end up: Hell. Fearful that his demise will send him to the chamber of horrors, he tries to turn his life around in an attempt to avoid eternal damnation. With the help of Brian, Stewie goes through around three sketches to find the answers he is seeking and to finally come to a decision on his goal in life.

In many ways you can argue that it comes across as a sort of Family Guy Christmas Carol take, with Stewie coming to terms with his past behaviour, his present time to change his ways, and the attempts he makes in the future to find a way to change his past.

There are some interesting side stories, but at times it felt very close to being The Simpsons. The side sketch of “What Really Grinds my Gears” could easily have had Brockman and Homer instead, and it just felt a bit too eerie in that sense. Some of the most memorable moments of Family GUy are the parody flashbacks, and in this there is no shortage of them, and of my favourites include a flashback to Jesus demonstrating his powers to the non-believers.

Animation wise, it is pretty much the same as the TV series. It’s probably just me, but it did feel a tad richer and smoother, but there was nothing significantly fresh or new about it. The simple animation and basic character design remains the same and is faithful with no tragic experiementations taking place.

I’m not sure it would as well as it could have, however, and my initial fear was realised towards the 40th minute. It’s an entertaining piece for the typical 25 minutes, after 30 minutes it’s still good, 35 to 40 minutes in and you start to wonder where the story is going and whether it will get going. 60 and 70 minutes into the movie and I was wondering what time it was. I was grateful when it finished.

There’s much to like about the Straight to Video effort, from the single plot broken into three main sketches with sub-sketches to the entertaining gags. There’s perhaps an excess of fart gags, however, which is fine if you’re 13 or 14 years old, and at first is amusing but does become rather tiresome.

In general the movie isn’t bad, but it proves that in order to turn a half hour show into an hour and half without making it feel like a gag extended beyond it’s means, you need to be a lot stricter and lot sure about the direction you want to take. I suppose that’s partly what it really lacked, and aside from direction, it also lacked something new, or something we hadn’t seen before. If anything the movie lacks the sharpness of it’s series relation, and I would put this down to laziness or a whimiscal idea put into production without any foresight.

verdict: Not bad, but it does grate after a while. Some great gags, but no real direction. A wasted effort