Wednesday, November 23, 2011

The Muppets

The Muppets
Directed by: James Bobin
Written by: Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller

Plot
With the help of three fans, the Muppets must reunite to save their old theater from a greedy oil tycoon.

Review
I was a little surprised to see that The Muppets was rated 97% on rotten tomatoes before I left for the theater but now I can see why. The Muppets was a crowd pleaser for sure. It is wild and witty and the musical numbers are extremely catchy. The Muppets are definitely aimed for kids though, and even though Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) wrote this film, they keep true to who The Muppets are and don’t add crude or obnoxious jokes that are unfit for theThe Muppets personalities. 

The movie follows a new Muppet into the Muppet universe. His name is Walter and he played the Muppet brother of Jason Segel’s character, Gary. The two of them grew up as huge fans of the Muppets and when Gary was bringing his girlfriend Mary, Amy Adams, to LA for their anniversary, Walter came along to see Muppet Studios. This is where the problems begin when Walter overhears a rich oil tycoon (Chris Cooper) who wants to shut down the studio and drill for oil. The Muppets must reunite to save their theater. Yes, the story narrative and story telling isn’t very complex, but it is for children and it doesn’t need to be. The movie was pure fun and it carried the movie along with its all star cast.

Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, and Jack Black were the front stars in this film but there were a ton of cameos. Neil Patrick Harris, Selena Gomez, Ken Jeong, Jim Parsons (may have been my favorite cameo), Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, Donald Glover, and many more all made small appearances and provided tons of laughs. Jason Segel was the lead in this film, which I thought was a problem. Jason Segel should not have been the lead in a Muppet movie. He felt too dominant and I get it, he wrote it and did a ton of work on it but he should have cut down his role a little bit to give more screen time to the Muppets. All the Muppets did get screen time and they left nobody out but some of the Muppets only appeared once in the fore front. Kermit and Walter had a ton of time, Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear had a decent amount of time but everybody else felt like they were left on the back burner to let Jason Segel have more screen time.

The musical numbers were the best parts of this film with nifty dance numbers to accompany them. The best one by far is “Man or Muppet” when we get to see a Muppet version of Jason Segel and a Human version of Walter, played by Jim Parsons. The Muppets is a celebration of what Jim Henson created and should bring back many fond memories. 

Rating: 8/10
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