The Muppets
I suppose I’ve always been a bit sentimental about The Muppets. I remember watching Jim Henson’s creations a lot as a child, whether it was the joyously funny comedy-variety show on TV or the silly movies that hit screens (“The Muppets Take Manhattan” was the one I watched most). Hell, even “Muppet Babies” were fun for me. And don’t even get me started on “Fraggle Rock.”
When Jim Henson died in 1990, unfortunately, the spirit of The Muppets seemed to die along with him. I watched the two feature films the gang made in the ’90s, “Muppet Treasure Island” and “Muppets in Space,” but even the most die-hard fan would be hard-pressed to try and mount a defense for those.
In many ways, “The Muppets” is co-star/co-writer Jason Segel’s way of recapturing that spirit that seemed lost with Henson’s passing. This was a passion project for Segel, and that love for The Muppets comes through in every frame of the film: that ridiculous vaudeville sensibility, blended with an absurd surrealness in tone, as well as a hokey romanticism that can be capable of tickling even the most cynical funny bone, and bringing a tear to the most jaded moviegoer. Admittedly, the film doesn’t always hit home comedically– thankfully, the self-aware attitude the film takes early on vanishes by the midway point, and the hard-edged “Moopets” are underused (or overused; admittedly, I’m still a bit conflicted about that) –but The Muppets still have my heart.
And it’s the heart of the film that really works for me here. There are a few key, thematic ideas at work here: the first revolves around the relevance of The Muppets after so long, admittedly, a rather meta concept, since that notion is part of what makes the idea of a new movie after so long such a risky proposition to begin with; thankfully, the second that Kermit starts to get the gang back together, any worries about The Muppets lasting appeal fade away pretty quickly. The second idea is that of finding where we belong in the world, which The Muppets not only have to discover in order to pull off the show, but the film’s main characters must do as well.
The story of “The Muppets” the film centers around a trip to Los Angeles for Gary (Segel), his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams), and Gary’s “brother,” Walter. I put “brother” in quotes because Walter is a Muppet. If you’re groaning, I can’t say I blame you, but I feel like Segel, his co-writer, Nicholas Stoller, director James Bobin, and Peter Linz (who performs Walter) pull it off pretty well; I mean really, the movie begins in Smalltown, USA, and starts off almost immediately with a big musical number (“Life’s a Happy Song,” the first of many delightful songs from songwriter Bret McKenzie)– we’re pretty far from reality here. While there’s a perfunctory “bad guy” in Chris Cooper’s oil tycoon (who wants to tear down the Muppet Studio) to add urgency to the Muppets’s need to get back together, the real tension in the story comes from Gary and Walter, who have been inseparable since youth, having to figure out where their purpose is in life, best illuminated in the ballad, “Man or Muppet?” (Don’t worry, Amy Adams is given a chance to work out her “Enchanted” singing chops as well with the song, “Me Party.”)
I’ll save you the suspense– all turns out rosy for both The Muppets and their human (and non-human) fans; did you really expect it to end otherwise? The movie doesn’t reinvent the formula of what makes a successful “Muppet” movie, and even if it isn’t a totally successful return to form, it’s damn good to have Kermit (who not only gets to sing his signature song, “The Rainbow Connection,” but also a melancholy number called “Pictures in My Head” at the start that should earn him another time on the Oscar stage), Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Animal (who has my favorite post-fame backstory of the bunch), and co. back on the big screen, even if there isn’t enough Gonzo to go around. (Was his agent a pain to deal with?) Welcome back, guys. Please, don’t ever leave us again.
