There's been near palpable fear in The Muppets fan community
that this new film would be something of a sacrilegious spit in the collective
eye of their fandom; those fears can be set aside, because The Muppets is a fun film with only minor faults to hold it back
from classic status.
The movie starts with Walter, an alienated Muppet-like
character and his human brother Gary (Jason Segel) taking off on a trip to
visit the old Muppet studios in Hollywood, California. They arrive to find a dilapidated
and abandoned studio and Walter stumbles into a rich oil baron's (Chris Cooper)
plan to tear the place down and drill for black gold. There's only one shot at
saving the studio, that being the Muppets raising $10 million before the sale
goes through, and it's only natural that Walter and Gary take off on a road trip
to reunite the Muppets and save it.
The movie really plays into the current state of the
Muppets; late twenty-somethings and older audiences might have fond memories of
The Muppet Show and their movies, but
let's face it, there's a whole younger generation that have little affinity for
them. The movie acknowledges their popularity by making the Muppets incredibly
unpopular in their own movie; at some point they fell out of favor with the public
and they all broke up and went their separate ways: Gonzo runs a very
successful bathroom fixture company, Miss Piggy's became an ex-patriot and poor
Fozzie Bear is scraping by doing night gigs with a crappy Muppet cover band at
a Reno casino. These Muppets aren't singing and dancing (at first). They're
broken, downtrodden, disinterested in their friendships or involved in their
own personal exploits - the anti-Muppets. Only when faced with the threat of
losing the theater is Kermit able to convince everyone to get the band back
together for one last show to save the keystone of their partnership and
friendships.
There's a self-aware, almost meta sense of humor that pervades this movie. The Muppets themselves are aware of their status and give the audience a nudge and a wink every now and then to let them know that they're in on the ironic jokes at their expense. The first act plays wonderfully and gives an updated kick to The Muppets; it feels like the same wacky, bizarre sense of humor, just updated for an older audience. Unfortunately the winking and nudging become a bit too prevalent towards the back half of the movie and the movie goes to the meta humor well a few times too many.
Jason Seagal fits in well with his puppet co-stars through his over-sized expressions and over-the-top personality. His human co-star, Amy Adams, however, doesn't fare as well. Amy Adams plays Amy Adams in one of the most Amy Adams roles I've seen; she's meek and mild and seems uncomfortable in her scenes. She's completely irrelevant to the movie's plot, except as a device to kick off the initial Hollywood road trip, and just sort of fades into the background, with only rare comment or song.
The songs in The Muppets are mostly fun, but there are quite a few duds, like Adams's "Me Party" and an absurd and awkward "rap" from Chris Cooper that just stands out as a studio executive's wish to make the movie wackier. Mainstays, like "Rainbow Connection," don't disappoint and the use of 80s jams play well to the crowd's collective nostalgic sense.
There's a ton of great nostalgic fan service in this film with fun
Muppet cameos galore. I don't mean celebrity cameos (of which there are plenty),
I mean cameos by Muppets; you'll see the Baby Drivers pop up, Thog (the blue
guy from The Muppet Show's opening scene) and a few others to tickle the
nostalgia bone. That dedication to showing nearly every Muppet (sadly, Rizzo
is nowhere to be found) is awesome and goes to show that the new Muppets haven't forgotten about the
old Muppets.
The Muppets is worth going to see, even if the story suffers
towards its deus ex machina conclusion;
grab the family, hit the theater this Thanksgiving and have a great time with the
Muppets. Oh, and introduce the younger people to the gang.
