MESSAGE IN THE MOVIES

The Muppets   Rated PG

Directed by James Bobin. Starring Jason Segel, Amy Adams

Photo: Walt Disney Studios
Movie Review by Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

 Mark Twain once wrote: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” I wish that the makers of the new Muppet movie had come to the same conclusions about Jim Henson’s wonderful menagerie of characters.  While television’s The Muppet Show went off the air in 1981, the gang continued to make movies for quite some time and the characters have always been popular.  The last theatrical film, Muppets in Space (1999) was a terrible movie, but the Muppets still kept busy with television projects, including The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz (2005).

As the film opens, Gary (Segel) and his brother Walter (who is a Muppet but doesn’t know it) reminisce about the joy they have known together, growing up and watching The Muppet Show on television.  Gary and his girlfriend Mary (Adams) decide to go to California to celebrate their ten years of dating and purchase a third bus ticket for Walter to come along.  Walter hopes to be able to visit the Muppet Studio. 

When they arrive, the studio is abandoned and in total disrepair, with nary a felt-covered creature in sight.  The gang has dispersed and has traveled to other locations.  Fozzie Bear is playing a seedy nightclub with a Muppets cover band, Gonzo is the CEO of a plumbing company, Miss Piggy is an editor of the Paris edition of Vogue, and….yeah, who cares? Gary and Walter do, and they talk Kermit into joining them to round up the old gang and save the studio.  They have to move fast, because an evil Texas oilman (Chris Cooper) knows that there is black gold under the building and is ready to tear the building down to get it.

You just know the world is moving way too fast when a 31-year old man (actor-writer Jason Segel) is getting sentimental about a TV show that went off the air when he was a baby.  I’m not sure if nostalgia is the real culprit here, or simply an excuse to reuse the storyline from 1979’s The Muppet Movie.  Nostalgia is to blame for a movie that spends most of its running time churning up memories of the Muppets rather than letting them have fun.

Little kids are bound to be bored by the grown-up pretentions and slow pace of this movie, and most grown-ups will be bored by the innocence of the love story and the half-baked jokes and hammy star turns (including Chris Cooper and Jack Black) that are more annoying than amusing.

I would have enjoyed this film more if I could have watched it in the balcony with Statler and Waldorf, two old guys who know a thing or two about mediocre entertainment.
       

Pitchfork/Halo Ratings:

Three halos: A good-natured film that fails to appreciate the tremendous world of its central characters.

One pitchfork: One fart joke -- it’s in the trailer, so your kids already have seen it; and some dark and gloomy places.

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