Review of The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) by Gareth R — 14 Aug 2009

This is the Muppet movie I've known the longest. It's probably still somewhere in the house, recorded on a battered old video, watched dozens of times and very much loved to the point where the picture goes funny. So it's a rather rude awakening to discover that, although it's entertaining and consistent fare, it's also the weakest Muppet movie.

Recasting the Muppets as school graduates with a talent for musical theatre, this story sends Kermit and friends to New York, where they hope to get a producer for their show, Manhattan Melodies. But nobody's interested. All the Muppets except Kermit go off to get jobs or generally just leave, while Kermit continues to try finding a producer. Eventually he gets one, the Muppets return, and - in a desperate bid to extend the movie by another twenty minutes - Kermit gets amnesia and goes missing. The rest is a matter of finding him and putting the show on, as they only have two weeks to do it, which is a pretty random and needless ticking clock, to be honest.

Firstly, most of this is basically the same as The Muppet Movie, with musical theatre in place of the movie business. Although the Muppets are hugely creative characters, on the big screen they seem to be lumbered with increasingly arbitrary plots - probably because The Muppet Show was sketch-based and didn't have one. The decision made in the '90s to have them parodying established stories was a great idea, as it took the pressure off telling a decent story (which the Muppets aren't necessarily good at) and let them just be funny. Hence, A Muppet Christmas Carol is good stuff, and Muppet Treasure Island is a minor classic. The Muppets Take Manhattan, where they basically kill time until opening night, is a dull story.

Secondly, there's absolutely none of the fourth-wall-bashing cleverness that made the first two films so recommendable: they had dull stories as well, but the characters made fun of that. The Muppets are just characters here, without that supernatural awareness of what's going on that made them so different and funny in the first place. Lame plot twists like Kermit's amnesia are usually fodder for in-jokes. In Muppets Take Manhattan, they're nothing more than the plot. How disappointing.

As it's about musicals, there's more actual music than in the previous films, and it's generally very good, which is a relief. Previously Muppet songs have been a nuisance, but not so here: you can actually recall most of them when they're finished, and you may even sing along a bit. If they hadn't got this right, Manhattan would still be watchable enough, but there'd be almost nothing to really recommend.

It's far from terrible. It's funny and all, but never as witty or sharp as I've come to expect. Thankfully we don't have to retread the meeting of Kermit and Miss Piggy, although we do still focus heavily on their relationship and, eventually, marriage. (Seriously, can we have a different emotional plot in the Muppet movies, please?) The time goes by relatively quickly, although that clumsy last-act twist smacks so much of desperation that you can feel the writers struggling. It's really an enjoyable, funny movie, and for fans of the Muppets it's an obvious no-brainer. It's just a pity that, although improved in some ways, it's so lacking in what makes these films stand above the rest. Being a no-brainer is precisely the problem.