The Muppet Movie

This past weekend, I quit eating long enough to take in the new Muppet Movie.  It's appropriate that I saw this over Thanksgiving Weekend - it's a real turkey.

I have been a fan of the Muppets since the 70's.  The old Muppet Show was lively, clever, and had lots of great cameo appearances by all kinds of stars.  Unfortunately, this movie has only one of the three.

The movie starts slowly - the early song and dance numbers are slow and have little life.  Of course, that comment pretty much sums up my thoughts about the whole movie - there's just no energy to the production.  Much of that is the fault of the human cast.  Jason Segal (Marshall from "How I Married Your Mother") is such a bland, vanilla character that I pretty much just fell asleep every time he opened is mouth.  Amy Adams is very cute, and provides what little spark there is in this movie.  She  can sing and dance, and is always an appealing character.  Unfortunately, there's only so much she can do, and for much of the movie she just stands around on the edge of the crowd, looking kind of embarrassed.  The villain, played by Chris Cooper, is fine - he's just not very funny.

The human characters, of course, are never the stars in a Muppet Movie.  As much as it pains me to say it, the Muppets are a big part of the problem here.  In previous movies - not to mention in the TV show - they were real characters, with vivid personalities, including their own special quirks.  This bunch were just animated puppets.  Where was the interaction between Kermit and Miss Piggy?  For crying out loud, Miss Piggy only hit one person!  Gonzo didn't have enough death-defying stunts, and even Animal didn't go nuts.  It was like the whole bunch were on tranquilizers.

The plot was OK, as far as it went.  Gary (Segal) and Walter are brothers, except of course Walter is a Muppet.  Walter's a huge fan of the Muppets, and becomes involved in the quest to save their theater from destruction.  The rich, evil villain gets his in the end, and Gary, Mary (Adams), and Walter live happily ever after.  All this is fine - it's what's NOT in here that matters.

Where is the conflict between Kermit and Piggy?  How about a little something between Mary and Kermit - wouldn't that work to make Piggy jealous?  Piggy is a wonderful charachter - maybe my favorite Muppet - who doesn't do anything in this movie.  If nothing else, it would give us a little more of Amy Adams (never a bad thing), and give Kermit a chance to connect with her as well as the audience.  There's a big block of the movie spent of rounding up the old gang, but nothing much happens, and what does happen just isn't funny.

Finally, after what seems like forever (it's actually only 98 minutes), comes the "show within the show".  This is the best part of the movie.  It's ALMOST as good as the old TV show - plenty of gags, tons of celebrity cameos, some decent music.  It's not great, but it is pretty good, especially compared to the rest of the movie.  Unfortunately, it's not good enough to make up for the last hour of pain.

If you, like me, are a great Muppet fan, do yourself a favor - instead of seeing this movie, go find a copy of the original Muppet movie, or the old TV show.