Muppets are back with unbridled enthusiasm

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This article was published 24/11/2011 (5155 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

HOLLYWOOD is a cynical town, and one couldn’t be blamed for suspecting this movie is just another cheap reboot.

Remember that the Muppets were a thriving concern back in the late ’70s, when the syndicated TV series The Muppet Show was the most watched television show in the world.

Though a statue of Kermit the Frog in Charlie Chaplin duds still hovers over Highland Avenue in Hollywood, the Muppet realm has fallen into a dissipated empire and one fears The Muppets may just be one last squeeze of the cash cow before it gets sent permanently to pasture.

(If you just envisioned a cow Muppet with a dollar-bill hide, you are undoubtedly familiar with the literal-minded Muppet universe.)

Fortunately, The Muppets is eccentrically delightful. Writer-star Jason Segel may come from more worldly movie/TV work such as Knocked Up and How I Met Your Mother. But his love for the innocent slapstick-Vaudevillian comedy style of the Muppets is not only earnest, it is boundlessly energetic, and that shines through in every digital frame of this puppet comedy.

Segel (who actually resembles an oversized 12 year old, now that I think of it) plays Gary, a good-natured small-town slob devoted to his apple-cheeked teacher girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) and to his brother Walter, the self-described world’s biggest Muppet fan. (There is undoubtedly a biological component to Walter’s adoration. He is himself a Muppet, puppeteered by Peter Linz of Broadway’s Avenue Q.)

The three take off for a vacation to Los Angeles where they sign on to a Muppet studio tour, only to find a decrepit, virtually abandoned facility. Walter overhears the plans of a ruthless oil millionaire named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the old theatre. It will cost $10 million to maintain Muppet ownership, so the trio sets out to find Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and the gang to save their legacy.

It’s not easy. Kermit lives a melancholy existence in a lonesome mansion, like an amphibian Norma Desmond. Miss Piggy is the high-powered editor of French Vogue. Fozzie Bear has been roped into performing in a Muppets Tribute show — The Moopets — in Reno, Nev., opposite a group of sleazy Muppet pretenders. And the Great Gonzo is a millionaire in the plumbing supply industry.

Still, the gang gets over its fractious history and stage a telethon to raise the capital. But Richman and his evil cohorts are intent on subverting the show.

Like Segel, director James Bobin has worked on more adult fare (Flight of the Conchords), but he gets the proper tone of The Muppets. The humour is as corny as Fozzie’s comedy routine, but it is delivered with absolute sincerity. Sincerity counts for a lot, especially with Segel, who gamely attempts to match the musical theatre vet Amy Adams with his singing and dancing. Technically, he is not up to it. He doesn’t look like Fred Astaire so much as he looks like Frankenstein’s monster doing an impression of Fred Astaire. I repeat: Sincerity counts for a lot.

Minor problems arise. After Jim Henson’s death, Steve Whitmire assumed the personality and voice of Kermit the frog with seamless ease, and the same cannot be said for Eric Jacobson who is off-puttingly off taking over Miss Piggy and Fozzie from Frank Oz.

Also, the spectacle of Chris Cooper rapping gangsta-style is vaguely nightmarish.

But those are minor quibbles in the face on a winning entertainment. Ultimately, Segel was the right guy to revive the moribund Muppets, not with edgy humour but with sheer unbridled enthusiasm.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Other Voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of The Muppets.

The Muppets is clever and current without being cynical, smart without being condescending, funny without being exclusionary to grown-ups or to kids.

— Blll Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

These are the same old, adorable Muppets, as sweetly innocent and likable as ever. Winking at itself, the movie is casually, amusingly self-reflexive.

— Stephen Holden, New York Times

It’s fun to spend time with these characters again.

— Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

The Muppets may have been born out of a desire to revive a dormant franchise that was once a cash cow, but there isn’t a single beat in the film that feels crass or opportunistic. This one is from the heart.

— Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald

The musical comedy whimsically and often cleverly revisits the characters, their shtick and and the TV show and movies that made them most famous.

— Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

Effortlessly blending wised-up, self-reflexive humor with old-fashioned let’s-put-on-a-show pizzazz, The Muppets is an unexpected treat

— Justin Chang, Variety

—- Compiled by Shane Minkin

The Muppets

Starring Jason Segel and Amy Adams

Grant Park, Kildonan Place, Polo Park, St. Vital, Towne

G

98 minutes

Three and a half stars out of five