Checking Rotten Tomatoes, it looks like the movie will settle in the 65-70% range, which isn't bad, but yes, that does mean Cars 3 beats it.
I've had a hard time pinning down what I like about the show's comedy, since it really isn't particularly funny, but
this Slate review defines it perfectly.
The screenplay, by Meghan McCarthy, Rita Hsiao, and Michael Vogel from a story by McCarthy and Joe Ballarini, is light on jokes, which is fortunate because the few that are there are terrible. The real humor comes from the sitcom-style satisfaction of seeing familiar characters behave like themselves.
That makes me think of moments like in "It Isn't the Mane Thing About You", when Rarity is walking through the forest with spooky eyes in the background, and she yells at the eyes, which shames them into leaving. Not that funny in and of itself, but it was incredibly charming because it was Rarity acting like herself.
It definitely does seem that, in retrospect, they either should have gone for a smaller, more personal story for the movie, which would allow characters like Rarity and Fluttershy to shine more, or go balls to the wall crazy and discard any attempt to make things easy for new viewers. Have Ember and Thorax join in on a fight against Celestia and Luna's evil brother!
You might recall me posting in the Community thread a while ago about my idea for the finale of the show, basically adapting Star Trek: TNG's finale, "All Good Things". Twilight finds herself being flung between three time periods: the present, the first episode, and 1000 years into the future, where she's a Celestia like figure. If you have Discord as a traveling companion, complaining that this is a lot less fun when he isn't causing it (referencing Q's role in the TNG story), then you could have a really neat story that explores how the entire immortality thing interacts with their friendships. The story could mainly focus on those two characters, and maybe Fluttershy, without it seeming odd that the others get small roles. I still don't expect FiM to last too many more years, so if they work on a sequel now, this could come after the show ends. Plus, this would allow the actual final episode to be slice of life, as is probably more appropriate.
