Review No.30: The Muppets

OK after a family film that I hadn't connected with to one that I hoped would be excellent seeing as its the big screen return for The Muppets. Although it's sort of standard for everybody to say their favourite Muppet Movie is A Christmas Carol for me it's always been Muppets Take Manhattan due to its knowing references and snappy musical numbers. Thankfully this film, simply titled The Muppets, has all that and more and focuses on brothers Walter and Gary the former of whom is a Muppet and the latter who is played by Jason Segal the man responsible for getting this latest Muppet film off the ground. When Walter, Gary and Gary's girlfriend Mary played by Amy Adams journey to L.A. and tour The Muppet Studios Walter finds out that Chris Cooper's Tex Richman plans to buy The Muppet Theatre, knock it down and drill for oil. The only way to save it is to get The Muppet gang back together and put on a show that will raise the required $10 Million to get the theatre back. Kermit rounds up The Muppets but has trouble getting Miss Piggy on board as she is now living in Paris and working for Vogue Magazine in scenes reminiscent of those in The Devil Wears Prada. Of course the highlight of the film is the show itself featuring old school songs such as Rainbow Connection, celebrity cameos from the likes of Jack Black and Selena Gomez and tie-ins to the main plot involving whether Walter considers himself to be a Man or a Muppet.

And it's this question that forms the backbone of The Muppets because even though the reconciliation of the group is what everybody is going to the film to see I certainly got quickly involved in Walter's story. Indeed by his own opening monologue I felt more sympathy for him than I ever did for the kid in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close so maybe this should've got a Best Picture nod instead. Both Jason Segal's script and his performance as Gary shows that he has a great love of The Muppets and a respect for the tradition however I never really took to Amy Adams' Mary who was an odd breed of smiles and resentment. Chris Cooper was excellent as the villain especially when he started rapping while Brett McKenzie's songs were amazing and more than deserve the Oscar nod that they have been given. The only problem for me was the overuse of knowing looks to camera and a cavalcade of in-jokes which sort of took away from the old school charm of The Muppets. But overall this was a charming slice of nostalgia but one that doesn't alienate younger viewers who just want to see chickens singing Cee-Lo Green songs.

Verdict: I was always going to love this film but I didn't expect it to be as near-perfect as this so I'm going to give it an impressive 8.5/10