Sensational, Inspirational, Celebrational, Muppetational.

Yes.  I actually made it to a movie theater again.

The Muppets: Yeah, so… yeah.  The Muppets.  Lots of stuff said about this flick in the months leading up to its release.  People seemed to be responding positively to some bits (“It’s a return to form!”  “It’s a sequel to the original movie!”) and negatively to others (“Oh my god, the Muppets have LEGS in this one!” “There’s a NEW Muppet?).  So, I’ll start there.

“It’s a return to form!” Now, my memory of The Muppets Take Manhattan and The Great Muppet Caper are spotty, at best, so for me, “return to form,” means the original The Muppet Movie from 1979.  So, is it a “return to form,” in this sense?  Sort of.  Not really.  But sort of.  I mean, it’s definitely not yet another Muppet-centric adaptation of a classic piece of literature, like Christmas Carol, Treasure Island, and Wizard Of Oz (didn’t like the first two, didn’t see the last), where Kermit & The Gang get plugged into an existing narrative- it’s an original story, it’s got musical numbers, and it’s very much about our fine felt friends… and a couple of humans.  Which is the biggest departure from the original, comparison-wise.  Yes, there were humans a-plenty in TMM, but they were mostly cameos.  The Muppets ran into these personalities (Steve Martin, Dom DeLouise, Milton Berle, Orson Welles, etc.) at various points along their road trip, and with the exception of the big bad guy (Charles Durning) and his toady (Austin Pendleton), they were all one-and-done, scene-wise.  In The Muppets we have, in addition to plenty of cameos, human co-protagonists Jason Segal and Amy Adams sharing (or is that stealing?) screen time with Kermit, Fozzy, Miss Piggy, et al.  Seriously, they’re on screen a lot.  Often without Muppets.  And while I like both of those people, I could have done without Mary (Adams) singing in a diner full of other non-Muppets about how alone she feels.  Now, if it were Janice from The Electric Mayhem, or even a new female Muppet to offset “Walter” (the new male Muppet), I’d have had no issue with it.  As it stands now, though, it’s a cute little song-and-dance number that could have found a nice, comfortable home in the “Special Features -> Deleted Scenes” section of a Blu-Ray release.

“It’s a sequel to the original movie!”  Yeah… not really.  The original was a film-within-a-film about how Kermit met the other Muppets on his journey to Hollywood to make a movie about how he met the other Muppets.  Whoa.  How meta.  Mind: blown.  Anyway, The Muppets is more of a sequel to The Muppet Show, since it deals heavily with the Muppets reuniting to raise money to get the show back on the air after 30 years.  Also, it references The Muppet Movie as a movie, so if you were getting really, really specific (read: super, super nerdy) about some kind of crazy Muppet-verse continuity, it would go something like this:  The Muppet Show happened, during which the Muppets made a movie about how they all met, The Muppet Show closed, then 30 years later Jason Segal and his Muppet brother Walter got the gang back together to save the studio.

“Oh my god, the Muppets have LEGS in this one!”  This was a weird pre-release complaint that I heard A LOT.  I’ll keep it brief- if you blink, you’ll miss it.  I think there were literally two shots of a Muppet walking on legs.  One is of Miss Piggy (who’s legs and feet we’ve seen in other movies) walking away.  The other I don’t even remember, beyond thinking, post-viewing, that there was another shot somewhere.  One of the POSTERS had them with legs (click here), so I imagine some Muppet nerds got really freaked out and assumed the whole film would be some weird puppet-CGI mashup extravaganza.  It really wasn’t.

“There’s a NEW Muppet?”  Yes.  Yes, there is.  And while I could easily call this part of the same issue (minor issue, in case I wasn’t clear) I had of screen time devoted to characters that aren’t familiar fabric faces, I’m not.  “Walter” feels like a classic Muppet character that we simply hadn’t met yet (and that’s pretty much how he’s portrayed).  And he’s our indentifiable protagonist, which is odd since between he and Gary (Segal), he’s the one not made of, you know, human parts.  But he does represent, quite clearly, the kid who never completely grew up and has always had a place in his heart for The Muppets.  And since I’m, like, old, and stuff, and can remember watching The Muppet Show in its initial run and seeing The Muppet Movie on the big screen when it came out, I “get” Walter.

So… what else?  Chris Cooper plays the baddie, “Tex Richman,” an oil baron who wants to buy the Muppet theatre under the false pretense that he’ll convert it into a museum.  But what he really wants is the oil underneath it.  Anyway, he’s Chris Cooper, so he’s awesome (even if his “rap scene” was kinda awkward).  The songs were pretty good, especially the “Are you a man or a Muppet,” one.  And while I did wish they had lightened up a little on the human presence, Segal & Adams really did give it their smilin’ best during their songs.  Reminded me a bit of “Once More With Feeling”- the Buffy musical episode (and BTVS’s Christophe Beck did the music here, so… I guess that makes sense).  All the returning Muppets feel like The Muppets, although I could have used more Gonzo, Pepe (“I am not a shrimp.  I am a KING PRAWN!”), and Beaker.  But let’s face it- we could all use a little more Beaker in our lives.  In fact, click here.

And the last 30 minutes of the movie are pure gold.  It’s the Muppets doing a telethon to raise money for the theater, but really, it’s an episode of The Muppet Show, right down to a re-staging of the opening number, Waldorf & Statler, a celebrity guest (Jack Black), and all the “live” craziness that dominated the original show.

So, anyway, I’m certainly not labeling this one a “return to form,” by any means (and, really, what is this “form” people speak of?)… but I’m sure happy they’ve steered clear of adaptation-land and given us an original, heartfelt (heartFELT!  HA!) story for all ages.  It didn’t blow me away, but I had a really good time, and it’s obvious that Segal is a huge Muppet fan (he wrote the movie, btw).  In my opinion there hasn’t been a truly great Muppet movie since, well, The Muppet Movie*, which definitely had a sort of raw edginess to it amongst all that heart that propels it into “Classic” territory.  The Muppets may lack that edge, but it got the heart right.  So, I’m content to call it, “Great,” which on my, uh… scale… is a 7.  So…

7 out of 10 Awesome Muppet Whistling Acts 

* Actually, I remember Muppets From Space being pretty great.  I think I need to check that one out again.