Review: The Muppets

 

The praise has been overwhelming, but of course there are still haters out there. Is The Muppets a good movie? Is it good for nostalgia fiends?  Is it good for children meeting this band of hippies for the first time? How do we even answer such questions for a franchise with so much baggage and mythology?

I self-identify as a “Muppets fan,” but then again, I’ve known Muppets fans who can recite lines from individual episodes decades old, and more than one person who has gotten a Kermit tattoo. That’s not me. Put me into that realm of people who is familiar with the characters and feels the soft burn of connection when I hear one of Fozzie’s jokes or watch Rowlf tickling the ivories. I can’t answer the question about whether children will like this movie; that’s up to the kids and their parents. But I’ll happily tackle the question of quality for older fans.

For fans the issue is whether we can separate ourselves from unreasonable (notice I didn’t say “high”) expectations and look at the movie with at least a veneer of impartiality. So to which of the historical Muppet movies would this new film most closely cleave? Would it be an incomprehensible pastiche of styles like Muppets From Space, or a witty adaptation like Muppet Treasure Island?  Would it have the deliberate camp and swagger of The Great Muppet Caper or The Muppets Take Manhattan?  Or would it express the eccentric and openly sentimental zen of 1979’s The Muppet Movie?  In terms of plot structure, it’s probably closest to a more contemporary take on Caper and Manhattan, but in terms of mood and style, the closest affinities are to The Muppet Movie.

The material is subtly subversive and offbeat, and the jokes don’t seem to be trying as hard as they did in some earlier efforts (cough Muppets From Space cough). You’ve got Camilla the Chicken leading a rendition of what must be either “Cluck You” or “Pluck You” moments after a Nirvana-covering barbershop quartet performs some headshrinking on Jack Black. And speaking of celebrities, the assembly is as appropriately motley and mottled as the Muppets themselves: Selena Gomez and Judd Hirsch? Neil Patrick Harris and Kristen Schaal?  James Carville?!  (The man is practically a Muppet himself). Of course, the lion’s share of stage time goes to Kermit and his inner circle, but you’ll also see Beauregard and Crazy Harry, Lew Zealand and even Marvin Suggs. Perhaps most tellingly, Walter’s internal and external journey through the film — achingly slow at times and painfully fast at others — is reminiscent in many ways of Kermit’s quest through The Muppet Movie. If the new film’s denouement is perhaps more conventional than its precursor, we have still enjoyed a ride with all of the Muppets at their idiosyncratic best.

In my humble opinion, the reason that a subset of 30-somethings hate this movie as vociferously as they do (almost as much as the rest of us love it) is that issue of expectation. There’s nothing wrong with having the highest expectations of a franchise we have loved for decades. The problem is when we expect to have the same response to a film at 33 as we did at 8. Sometimes we do catch a brief glimmer of that old feeling, that tell-tale frisson, here or there, but the overall point remains: No new Muppet film could have satisfied such critics because time-travel isn’t possible yet and the elixir of youth has not been invented. The best refuge for such viewers can only be the films and shows of the past, which are thankfully available on DVD. If we are going to enjoy a new Muppet experience as adults, then we’ll have to embrace the unfamiliarity that comes with anything that is “new.” That’s what “new” means. We have to accept and cherish a magic that can thrive in the present as well as in the past.

It would seem that this just brings me around to the earlier (unanswered) question; is this a movie that children will like?  Will they laugh through its juvenile slapstick today and then chuckle through its double entendre as adults?  That would actually be a much more compelling, and definitive, answer to the quality question than any critic or pontificating adult can give. It may be a while before they let us know for sure.

In the meantime, this adult enjoyed himself thoroughly. The magic was there from the beginning, with refreshing wit, swagger, sauce, bombast, razzle-dazzle, and open-armed compassion. The Muppets have done themselves proud.

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