A New Muppets Film For Old Fans
Swift shot: The Muppets are back with all their singing and dancing and of course lightning quick cameos . . . it’s a family film that will probably mean more to the aged but it was still a lot of fun for the littlest (and newest) Muppet lover in my family. Jason Segel deserves credit for making The Muppets cool again and for giving me new Muppet memories to share with my son, as my father and I shared many Muppet memories together.
I am not a Muppet fanatic by any means, but I have always had a soft place in my heart for anything that Jim Henson created, and when he died, it devastated me, a little piece of magic, hope, and imagination died that day, so anytime a new Muppet film comes out, I am reluctant to accept it as part of the canon. When I saw Jason Segel created a puppet opera for his aggressively funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall film, I wondered if he was a closeted Muppet fanatic – folks, the man IS a Muppet, granted a giant Muppet, but a Muppet nonetheless. I think Jim Henson would be proud of this film.
The Muppets starts out in Smalltown, USA, a place where everyone is carefree, happy and randomly breaks out into song and dance. This film is stuffed with plenty of frivolity, so if this is your first Muppet movie, get on board immediately or you will just sit there grousing the whole time. Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter (Walter the Muppet) are inseparable brothers who like to do just about everything together, but as Gary grows up, Walter . . . well, he is a Muppet, you do the math. One thing they always do together is sit in front of the TV and watch VHS tapes of the original “The Muppet Show”. Both giant fans, when Gary decides to take his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams) who is far from a bad teacher, to Los Angeles, he invites Walter to join them in the hopes they can visit the Muppet studio together.
Once they arrive though, the studio is in ruins, the tour amounts to basically viewing the outside and paying a fee – Walter is devastated, but he manages to sneak into Kermit’s old office (which is one of the most nostalgic scenes of the film, excellent job by designer Steve Saklad for that nice touch throughout the film). While there he overhears a business deal between the sinister Tex Richman and Statler and Waldorf who are finalizing the selling of the studio to Richman. As far as they know, the studio is being purchased to create a museum. They don’t know much, always too busy pitching one-liner put-downs to read the fine print. Still, Walter realizes all is not lost, as long as the Muppets can raise ten million dollars in a week – sure, simple enough . . . enter, the scream!
Desperate to save their beloved Muppets, Walter and Gary seek out Kermit the Frog, who is constantly referred to as “Mr. the Frog” – a bit that never gets old for some reason. The dramatic, and funny, first encounter is classic Muppet comedy, heavy on the absurd and quite punny. Kermit is quickly on board once he realizes the fine print spells the end of all things Muppet. The whole team, including the oft overlooked yet plucky Mary, gathers the old gang.
They manage to gather every Muppet with one piggish exception . . . yeah, Miss Piggy, who is working in Paris at Vogue – see if you can recognize her devilish secretary. They even convince one network, due to the cancellation of Punch Teacher, to let them air a telethon to raise the money needed to save Muppet studios. Now all they are missing is an A-list celeb, something that the original Muppet show would never have to worry about, but on such short notice, even in LA, the celebs aren’t lining up to help . . . which, if you read the production notes was the exact opposite – so many people were dying to be in this film. Giving away the A-lister would be mean-spirited and thus, un-Muppet behavior.
Reuniting the old friends is wonderful and Walter even manages to become a bona fide Muppet, but poor Mary is never quite sure where she stands with Gary, is he a man or a Muppet? Gary, and even Walter, struggle with that question towards the film’s finale and I’d wager America’s ‘biggest’ cameo will have you grinning and dying to tell your friends who you saw – but, again, that wouldn’t be very Muppet of you.
With original music scores by Bret McKenzie and choreography by Michael Rooney, son of Mickey Rooney, who is still ticking by the way, if Muppets movies are your thing, you won’t come out disappointed. I don’t know if people will rush out to by the album before Christmas, but I do imagine a ton of downloads for “Man or Muppet”, by far one of the best, personally home-hitting, sequences in the film. Heck, it may even be on par with “Rainbow Connection”.
At the end of this film, I hope you find yourself asking that same question, are you a man/woman or a Muppet, because we all need to channel our inner-Muppet from time to time, even if for only a few moments then we begin to realize that life is a happy song. Enjoy the Muppets, you will, even if Miss Piggy isn’t Frank Oz.
