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In the normal course of reviewing a "kid's movie," a natural question tends to be, "But how much does it offer any adults in the audience?" So it is a bit backwards to leave a Muppets movie asking, "But how much does it offer any kids in the audience?"
Here's one thing that seems almost certain: if you love the Muppets, particularly The Muppet Show, then you'll almost certainly love the movie. It is the purest example of a nostalgia play I've seen in a long time. Scriptwriters Jason Segal and Nicholas Stoller are clearly in that camp and do nothing to betray the trust placed in them. The Muppets are not dropped, fish out of water, into a cynical world like in The Brady Bunch Movie (1996). This isn't a Judd Apatow bromance with drug humor and gross-out gags.
Simply, it is a Muppet movie made by people who love what Muppet movies have been.
If you don't have those strong nostalgic connections, however, there isn't a whole lot offered to bring you onto the bandwagon.
Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter (Peter Linz) are brothers from Smalltown. Smalltown is like the black-and-white version of Pleasantville (1998) but more clean-cut. You'd be excused for jumping to the conclusion that Walter is a Muppet, but that would be wrong. Yes, he's a puppet, but nobody seems to be aware of that (though his prom date appears to sense somethings not quite right).
As a young boy, Walter discovers The Muppet Show on TV and is their biggest fan, and so it is a dream come true when Gary, getting ready to take his long-time girlfriend, Mary, to L.A., takes Walter along to visit the mythical Muppet Studios (played by the El Capitan exterior).
Of course, out in Hollywood, a set of a show that hasn't been on TV for 30 years isn't a huge tourist attraction, and the trio find it run-down and patronized mostly by tourists unable to find Universal Studios. When Walter overhears the plans of an evil oil tycoon (the only kind of oil tycoon there is, played by Chris Cooper) to buy the studio and destroy it, Walter knows what has to be done: He has to let Kermit know, get the show back together and do one more big show to raise enough money to save the studio.
Thus begins the best part of the movie, as all the characters are reintroduced, and we learn what has been going on with them. Most of the gags solidly connect. Let's just say that Fozzie isn't cut out for Reno.
The second half of the movie, as the big show comes together, doesn't work quite as well. It jumps around constantly, trying to fulfill too many storylines (Walter's burgeoning independence from Gary, Gary realizing he's taking Mary for granted, Kermit and Miss Piggy working through their issues, an '80s robot) to give any of them much attention. Then there are the acts that made The Muppet Show what it was: they're hinted at, but never actually shown in any detail.
In that sense, though, it is like the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies—sometimes the decision was made to just leave a blank, knowing the real fans would be able to fill in the holes.
There lies the problem, though. I'm not a real fan. As with everybody my age, I watched the Muppets when I was a kid, but they never quite worked for me. I was amused, but never fell in love (it may be blasphemous to admit that for me, the pinnacle of Muppet entertainment was the Muppet Babies Saturday morning cartoon). The Muppet movie continues that. I was willing to go along with this silliness, breaking the fourth wall, and there are quite a few good gags. But I still didn't care all that much.
The movie practically cries out that The Muppets should be relevant to kids again, but I'm not sure it ever really stops looking back at what it was in 1977 to explain what it could be in 2012. That could be the cynical view of a 37-year-old who never much got into them in the first place, but it may be noteworthy that at my screening, which are often packed with 6-year-olds, very few of the adults brought any children.
Now an overly defensive recap for those who will email me to tell me how cold, heartless, and lacking in any redeeming sense of fun and imagination I am (though it is the only time my mom emails me): I did not hate the movie, I kind of liked it. I also think it fulfills its intent, which just happens to be something not targeted to me. And that is OK.
The Muppets is a Walt Disney Pictures release.
Wide theatrical release Wednesday, November 23.
Directed by James Bobin.
Screenplay by Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, and Matt Vogel
Running time: 90 minutes
Rated PG for some mild rude humor
Alex's Rating: 7 out of 10
[Note: When originally published this article misspelled the name of Steve Whitmire.]
 
Comments
Thanks for your article & your thoughts regarding the Muppet movie. I'm left feeling a little deflated having read it but...
I only caught the tail end of the Muppets shows myself in re-runs as a kiddo. I am looking forward to introducing my 13 year old son to Animal, Miss Piggy & Kermit. I was hopeful that this movie stokes a Muppets revival but am doubtful that a generation with so many hybrid toys & gadgets will ever be able to get behind such artistic entertainment as puppets again. So I pretty much agree with your article 100%. I am lucky though. My son is a sentimentalist at heart & will be gracious & allow me the introduction but I don't see any Kermit T's in his future sadly. Maybe an Animal?
This critic is in the vast minority. The Muppets has been getting absolutely stellar reviews across the boards, and I can tell you from personal experience that this was one of the best movies I have seen all year and everyone in the audience, kids and adults alike, absolutely adored it. I predict this will be the smash hit of the Holiday season.
I want to reiterate that I do not feel it is a bad movie. It isn't. I think it perfectly recaptures what people loved about The Muppet Show.
The problem for me personally is that I was never particularly in love with The Muppet Show and so having that recaptured in a movie doesn't much move me. I would not be at all surprised if it is very successful, though I also wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to play a little too much to the nostalgia and thus leaves many children behind. IllusionOfLife, I notice that in your review you couch most of your praise for the movie in how it recaptured for you "characters and memories that should have never been allowed to fade into obscurity."
I'm definitely in the deep minority on this one, but then most of the critics reviewing are steeped in what the Muppets were 30 years ago as well so they are carrying their own bias and, I suspect, equally unable to speak with certainty about how it'll be received by those with minimal previous exposure to The Muppet Show.
So this was kind of like me being a food critic tasked with rating a dark chocolate dessert. I can objectively recognize that the dessert will be loved by those who like dark chocolate, but I, personally, don't particularly care for it.
So all I can do is report that while I am sure those who love the Muppet Show will love The Muppets, it didn't do anything to convert me from someone who was indifferent to someone who was in love. But I would still love the chance to see an animated feature length Muppet Babies movie.
We are pretty die-hard Muppet fans, and our kids have seen the Muppet Show, thanks to Netflix. That said, we bought opening-day tickets early, got to the theater for good seats, and brought along our Kermit and two Muppets that the kids made at FAO Schwarz's Muppet Whatnot Workshop. (See? I told you we're pretty die-hard.)
We were entertained and enjoyed the movie quite a lot. I think one of the things that bothered me the most was the extremely pink lipstick used on Chris Cooper (Tex Richman). Yeah, it's not heavy stuff, but it's entertaining. I loved the places where the Muppets had landed (Reno for Fozzie Bear, therapy for Animal, Google for Scooter, etc). And I really loved seeing all the Hollywood places that are so familiar to me.
Is it my favorite Muppet movie? No. I don't think anything can take that honor from Muppet Treasure Island. But I did enjoy it a lot.
Your review put into words what I felt after leaving the movie. I was a big muppet fan as a kid. My husband and I enjoyed the movie, understanding what it was and "getting" much of the dialogue that went over our kids heads. While they enjoyed it, it definitely wasn't as much fun for them as it was for us, the parents. I felt like this was one of those movies that was so well reviewed that I went in expecting too much. I agree, enjoyable but not enough for my kids.
We saw this today with My now 13, her friends 14, 10 and Grr 8. They liked it thought it was cute but way too much singing and not enough of the muppet show part. They wanted far more swedish chief and Beeker funny stuff as they put it. I guess more action less singing.
I think us parents got more of a kick out of it and most of the jokes went right over thier heads.
They so loved the singing chickens(more thier age music.
over all it was fun to go see but not my fav. one. We did all want to see a more DL type fun 3d muppet movie! Kids said now that would be a blast!
This review is one of the silliest things I have read in awhile but this type of journalism that seems to be prevalent in the media today. Why would MP post a review about a Muppet Movies from someone who has a predispostion of not even liking the Muppets? Of course you wouldn't like it! Why would you even want to go see it?
I do not go to see 'horror' movies because I do not the idea of them; of course I would give them a bad review. Silliness.
Your statement is akin to stating that a straight person couldn't play a gay character or vice-versa. A decent actor should be able to handle a variety of roles that aren't mirror images of themselves. Just like a reputable journalist should be able to write a coherent, well-thought out review of a movie, even it it's not his/her 'cup of tea. And I think Alex does this very well in this situation.
I would agree. It is silly journalism, but mostly because reviewing movies is not really journalism.
Why did I review it? Because I'm the one here who reviews movies. We could try to farm out each movie to the person we think is most likely to like it, but
a) that would be logistically more difficult to make arrangements for. You'll notice that your local newspaper has (or used to anyway) one or two movie critics on staff who see almost everything. What remains is farmed out to freelancers who get the assignment based on availability, not how likely it is they'll like the specific movie. As Roger Ebert (and most movie critics, almost all of whom are much better at this than me) have said, their jobs would be so much more fun if they only had to go see the movies they expected to like.
b) everything has somebody who likes it very, very much. We could try to find one person who is almost certain to like a movie and then put that review up. But what is the value in that? You'll have no idea who they are, what their general views are, how you can correlate that to your own general views on things. By having one person (or mostly the one person) review things, it creates a history that will be more useful. If you only ever read one A.O. Scott review it is useless to you even though he is one of the best critics of film out there. Assuming that at least some people regularly read my reviews (an egotistical assumption, but a possible fiction I like to maintain), one can find within them an imperfect personal barometer. You don't have to perfectly agree with, always disagreeing with me will be just as valuable a guide. Over time you perhaps learn my quirks and how they relate to your quirks. Perhaps I am underwhelmed by massive action spectacle so you learn that me disregarding a movie as over the top with action spectacle is a good indicator for you while you've learned that we share similar senses of humor (unlikely, my sense of humor is unique to me and all 40-year-old teenagers) and so I am useful when reviewing comedies but not science fiction (which I probably lower the bar for while being unyielding in the face of romantic comedies). If all you want is someone to say "I liked it!" then just assume that, because it is true of someone somewhere. I just don't know that it is at all useful in isolation.
3) Surprises may carry more weight. You find it silly that I went to The Muppets when I've never been blown away by them in the past (again, I've never hated The Muppets, I've just never been head over heels for them either) and then wasn't blown away by them this time. But would you disregard it as equally silly if I had reported back "I've never been a huge fan of the Muppets but with this film the scales have fallen from eyes and I finally see what the world's been in love with for the last 40 years"? Probably not. So, I go to movies I don't particularly expect to like, I try to keep as open a mind as possible (trust me, I was not expecting to like Puss in Boots), and then I try to honestly convey what I thought of the movie, and more importantly, why I thought it, and you all get to do with that what you will (which is mostly, understandably, nothing at all).
Well done!
Glad I stimulated a discussion; isn't that what reviews are about? I beg to differ (and probably other movie reviewers will probably agree with me); I think that movie reviews are a type of journalism. You certainly write like a journalist. I read all of the 'feedback' and appreciate others opinions. I just thought mine would be respected as well. My best to you and have a magical day.
I do respect your opinion. I'm not sure that labeling mine as the "silliest thing [you've] read in a while" shows much respect for mine, but I in no way object to you thinking that.
I did, however, want to defend and explain myself in response to it.
Many film critics are also journalists. But, personally, I don't really think the film review itself is a piece of journalism. Or if it is, it is opinion journalism about entirely subjective matters, and I would not label someone who only does film reviews (as I do) a journalist.
I'm not steeped in Muppets lore, but I did enjoy the film very much. I've only seen bits of Muppet Show segments and haven't seen any of the movies - though I *loved* Muppet Babies. I probably didn't enjoy it as much as someone more invested in the franchise, but I did appreciate the storyline they chose to take and the nostalgia reflected in the film. Kermit's song as he was looking at the paintings of his friends was very moving. And I found various cameos to be hysterical, notably Miss Piggy's secretary, but most especially, Walter's mirror self.