THE MUPPETS (PG)
BY JAKE MATHISON
December 9th, 2011
Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Rashida Jones and Chris Cooper
Directed by: James Bobin
Written by: Jason Segel, Nicholas Stoller and Jim Henson (characters)
It's a good time, and it tries really hard. That might seem like an oversimplification, but that's The Muppets in a nutshell. It's not the drastic reenvisioning most were expecting when Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) became attached to the project as a writer. And it's definitely not a reboot. It never pushes the envelope, but it's a mostly charming, family-friendly film full of safe choices, archetypes and retro goodness.
When Gary (Jason Segel) takes his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) and his little Muppet brother Walter to Los Angeles for a vacation, they inadvertently stumble across nefarious oil monger Tex Richman's (Chris Cooper) plot to destroy the relic Muppet Studios and spend the remainder of the film attempting to reunite Kermit with his old pals for a last-ditch studio saving effort.
There's a whole lot of Muppety merriment and nostalgia involved, with throwbacks to the days of telethons, '80s robots, New Coke and the like. All of this works. And there are some really good, honest moments for Kermit as well, with him spending most of the first act as an aging, defeated, and emotionally spent frog.
In spurts, there are also some really interesting choices and story elements at play in The Muppets. It's never revealed how Walter came to be Gary's little brother-- was he adopted, or is Muppetism some sort of genetic anomaly along the lines of dwarfism? There's plenty of fourth wall breakage. And Walter, Gary and Mary also seemingly live in a Truman Show-esque faux town that's always ready to bust out in song and dance upon command, yet observably relieved and exasperated of that routine when the trio departs on their Hollywood vacation. Needless to say, none of these non sequitur oddities are ever fully explained or developed, and it's a shame they weren't explored further instead of yet another greedy villain cliche or hokey Miss Piggy parody vignette.
The bottom line is that The Muppets, as a franchise, needs a facelift from an unlikely source--perhaps a David Lynch (Blue Velvet) or Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth)-- because it's now clear that Jason Segel just isn't going to be that person. It's one thing to respect the source material, but there's simply no edge to this film. It doesn't tread enough new ground to stave off an inevitable reboot. Heck, it's not even the best Muppet film of the last twenty years, an honor which distinctly belongs to the underrated cult favorite Muppets from Space. But it's still a film full of life, love, and the pursuit of Muppetness, and how could anybody not dig that? Mahna Mahna.
2.5/5 stars
The Muppets is rated PG for some mild rude humor
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