The Muppets: A Review
Posted By Kathleen David on November 15, 2011
For those of you who know me well, you know what the Muppets mean to me. To those of you that don’t know me that well, I think you still have an inkling of what the Muppets mean to me. I am a card carrying Muppet fan and have been for many years. So when I heard there was a new Muppet Movie in the works, I worked on keeping myself pretty much spoiler free. I knew who wrote it. I knew who starred in it. I knew who was directing it. But I avoided all the fan pages, user boards, and general on-line places where there were spoilers. I wanted to come into the film with pretty much an open mind.
That didn’t mean that I didn’t see the trailers for the film which is a pretty well done marketing campaign that reminded people in subtle and not so subtle ways what the Muppets were and why we love them. And I’ll admit, they got me with the first official trailer of the film.
Last night the WGA (Writers Guild America) had a screening of The Muppets for guild members and a guest. After the screening there was a Q&A with the writers of the film Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel. Peter and I went to see it. We lucked out and did some maneuvering and got seats front and center for the screening.
This is my spoiler free review of the film.
A couple of ground rules, this is one of the rare times I ask that any comments be spoiler free as well. I really would like the viewer to experience the film the way I did rather than going in knowing what is going to happen. This goes for who is in the film including cameos. I promise down the road we will have a “I can’t believe so and so was in the Muppet Movie” entry where we can talk about the film without worry.
Short review: I walked into the theater with an open mind and I walked out of the theater a very satisfied Muppet Fan. I laughed until I cried and then I cried and then I laughed some more. Both my eyes and my sides hurt after seeing this film but it was a good hurt.
Longer Review:
This is a Muppet movie soup to nuts. It has heart which is hard to find these days in a film without some sarcastic comment attached. It is a love letter to the Muppets and one from the Muppets to their audience. There are the jokes that almost border on the naughty. There is slapstick in the best Muppet tradition. There is song and dance and a couple of tunes that get stuck in your brain. It harkens back to the first Muppet Movie in many ways.
Jason Segel and Amy Adams are great in this film and really should do an other screw-ball comedy together. Chris Cooper is the villain of the piece and is delightful as he freely chews the scenery to shreds. All the other humans do a great job too.
But what about the Muppets which is the core to this film? A couple of characters were being performed by different people than the original operators. Overall not bad at all. There were a couple of times that it was painfully evident that someone else was under the puppet but those were few and fleeting. You saw pretty much every Muppet that Disney has in it repertory at some point on screen with the exception of Robin but I can understand that. Robin is Brian Henson and that they didn’t use him spoke of respect to the Hensons to me. Uncle Deadly is used very well and he does translate to the large screen which I wasn’t sure that he would since he had been built for the TV show. It was fun to play name that Muppet with the background characters in my head.
The newest Muppet is Walter who is voiced and operated by Peter Linz. Nice to see such a great guy get to do such a pivotal role in the film. I liked how Walter was used in the telling of the story. I think kids are going to relate to him.
This is a great family movie with stuff for the kids to laugh at and stuff for the parents to laugh. No naughty language which had been a trademark almost for the Muppets. We get close but nothing in there is a real swear word. There is the usual Muppet Mayhem but that is nothing new or unusual. There is lots of song and dance but they are integrated into the film rather than feeling that the whole movie is stopping for a dance number. This is that rare film that I would encourage people to see on a movie screen because there are details that will be lost on smaller screens.
How was the Muppets? Well I walked out with a smile on my face and a song in my heart with my faith in the Muppets restored. What more can you ask of a Muppet movie?
I am grateful that I got to see this film.
Comments