Review of The Muppets (2011) by Christy P — 23 Dec 2013

Many reviews on this site say something like "Oh, I didn't really care for it... but a REAL Muppet fan would!" I don't believe that for a second. Muppet fans enjoy sneaky, dry, adult humor.

Not dim. superficial, musical-based shiny-shoes giggles. It's not that this movie was hideous... it's just not a Muppet movie. At all. Another point: what other Muppet movie ever begins with a Muppet stuck with a bunch of regular people and no other Muppets? None.

Ever. If Jim Henson had written a rule book about his creation, I'm sure that would have been covered. It just doesn't work. The closest opening a Muppet movie ever had to this one was the one in Muppet Treasure Island.

However, it worked because for every one of those rather anonymous pirates, there were several crazy, exotic Muppet creatures. And it all was enclosed in an enjoyable mood-setting song as well. There were no such attributes to make the opening scenes in this movie work.

To put Amy Adams and Jason Segal in a movie with the Muppets is like setting Kojak in the Mary Tyler Moore show. Additionally, the Muppets always relied on the fact that people would relate. When you act as though the Muppets are out of touch and dull, it really takes away any credibility they had.

How can they be out of touch when they were always so individual that it was never an issue anyway? Besides, Fozzie's voice got so high sometimes in this movie that I thought it was meant to be a joke.

I don't think it's so hard to find someone who can actually sound the way he used to. I'm glad some people liked it anyway. MIckey Rooney's cameo was certainly a blessing to this film.