**1/2 out of ****
Directed by: James Bobin
Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and Walter
Running time: 102 minutes
Although I did not grow up watching The Muppet Show – I did manage to catch their facsimiles on TV commercials and the odd Sesame Street episode, though – Jim Henson’s endearing creations still loom on the periphery of popular culture for good reason.
Whether they be warmhearted (Kermit the Frog), goofy (Fozzie Bear) or just plain raucous (Animal), they are instantly recognizable for children and children-at-heart around the world. (I guess as a film critic, I particularly like Statler and Waldorf, the old grumpsters in the balcony.)
One of those children-at-heart is comedy actor Jason Segel, whose infatuation with the characters led him and director Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) to Disney boardrooms, where they pitched an idea to develop an all-new Muppet movie.
Segel fished his wish: using a deft mix of nods to Muppet yesteryear and hip, modern meta-humour, him and Stoller crafted a tongue-in-cheek if wildly uneven tribute to those wonderful marionette puppets.
The film’s prologue sets up the story of Gary (Segel) and Walter (Peter Linz), two brothers growing up in Smalltown, USA who are a big fan of the Muppets. Smalltown is a place where it is customary to randomly break out into a rigorous song-and-dance routine.
The problem is that Gary is a man and Walter is a Muppet. Alongside Gary’s long-time girlfriend, chaste schoolteacher Mary (the adorable Amy Adams), the brothers head out to Los Angeles.
But when they head to a Muppet Studios tour, the trio discovers that the place is in decrepit ruins. Walter sneaks into Kermit’s office and overhears a maniacal Texas oil magnate – appropriately named Tex Richman and played by Chris Cooper – unveil his plans to transform the run-down studios into a spot for oil drilling. That is, unless the Muppets can summon $10 million within the next week to take back their old stomping grounds.
And how can this money come together? Well, bring back the Muppets for a long-awaited reunion show, of course!
But before we play the music and light the lights – and you undoubtedly started humming the iconic theme song there – we have to meet these Muppets. The trouble with this newest reincarnation of the popular brand is that we don’t really get to know many of these furry, freaky or funny creations all too well over a span of 102 minutes.
The Muppets is charming but overstuffed, so eager to please with a plethora of cheeky musical numbers, high-wattage celebrity cameos and variants of meta-humour that any attention the film gives toward developing character and moving the story forward seem like afterthoughts in comparison.
The film instead garners much of its gleeful laughter from winking at the audience and far less from the physical action and verbal candor expected from the title characters themselves.
With the exception of ringleader Kermit and hyperactive dummer Animal – who is taking anger management classes and has resolved to say no to drums – the rest of the Muppets get the short end of the string, story-wise. While Fozzie Bear is a D-list lounge singer in Reno and Miss Piggy works in Paris as editor of a fashion magazine, many fan favourites are lucky to get a line or two.
Meanwhile, Jason Segel and Amy Adams, two very likable actors, play very likable if very flat human companions. Their scant romantic storyline is simplistic and mishandled, and further detracts ample screen time from the title characters.
But, as most Disney concoctions go, the film's heart is in the right place. New character Walter, struggling with a Muppet identity in a mostly human world, is the film’s requisite pulse. His sentimental (rainbow) connection to the Muppet characters mirrors Segel’s (and much of the target audience’s) excited fanfare, and so he works brilliantly as the film’s emotional centre.
Several moments within The Muppets are delightful and heartwarming, while others, such as several stilted, awkwardly paced musical summers are lacking (although the obligatory "Rainbow Connection" number is timeless). These scenes should be watched with Statler and Waldorf heckling their insidious commentaries at the screen.
Regardless, the pleasure of seeing these characters back on the big screen is enough to earn the film a recommendation, even if the originality and charm that set these terrific creations apart in past ventures is curiously restrained. It’s a heartfelt and delightful nostalgia trip, albeit a bumpy one too.
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