This Thanksgiving, along with a healthy serving of stuffing and tryptophan-laced turkey, I am thankful for The Muppets. A movie that is executed almost flawlessly, The Muppets needs nothing more than its splendid simplicity and loveable cast of characters. Without booming graphics or robust explosions, without melodrama and gratuitous romance and without the trendy use of 3D, Kermit the Frog and company bring us a movie that will appease the lifelong fans while openly welcoming new ones.
The film picks up with Jason Segal’s Gary, a cheerfully average guy who has a muppet, Walter, for a younger brother. It’s not until Walter is of an adult age when he discovers The Muppet Show, and thus understands what he actually is. He becomes enthralled with his fellow kind. Walter, along with Gary and his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams), take a trip out to California with the intentions of going on a tour of the muppet studios.
With a wink and a nod to present day reality, the three come to find that the muppets are old news, and that their studio is unkempt and falling apart. But Walter learns that the muppets are unknowingly going to hand over their property to an oil tycoon (Chris Cooper), who deviously plans on tearing the place down altogether. The only stipulation is that if the muppets pull together $10 million in the next few days, their studio will stay intact. How pleasantly convenient.
Thus, Gary, Mary and Walter set out to find the muppets, long unseen from the public view, and bring them together for one final hurrah. Among them, they find Kermit living in a gated mansion; Fozzie Bear moonlighting in a sleazy pub; Animal in a sort of zen retreat to ease his wild tendencies; and Miss Piggy living large as an uppity businesswoman (businesspig?) in Europe.
The first thing I notice here is the willingness of the filmmakers to accept the year we live in and realize that the muppets are far past their prime. Understanding that, this movie isn’t just an extended episode of a children’s show. It’s pays homage to those who grew up watching the muppets. I look at it this way—you can have these characters say and do nearly anything; just so long as it’s the muppets saying and doing these things, it will appeal to children. So we get a variety of puns that perhaps only adults can fully appreciate along with a few instances of breaking the fourth wall (for me, the most notable was Jason Segal acknowledging that he was reassured of a big life decision because he just performed a musical number about it).
The Muppets plays like a Broadway production, a musical on stage adapted for the big screen. As if the peppy musical numbers didn’t do enough to support that, Segal and Adams are there with grins from ear to ear and line deliveries that go perfectly over the top. Whether it be their characters or their true selves, the two exude their excitement to take part in the film. That joy can clearly be seen, and makes for a more enjoyable experience as an audience member. But what Segal and Adams also do an excellent job at is not overstepping boundaries. They are merely here to serve as a compliment to the muppets—while a human element is needed, the muppets in their own right are enough to carry the greater part of this story.
And, oh yes, let’s not forget about Chris Cooper. Playing the goofy cad in a muppets movie is new territory for Cooper, to say the least. I most recognize his work in American Beauty and The Town, among a whole bunch of other films in which he plays a lowlife or something of the like. But here he’s convincingly hamming it up with song and dance to pair with a maniacal laugh. With the group of silly characters we already have, combined with cameos galore, Cooper may get lost in the mix. He shouldn’t, though, because he quite possibly steals the show.
Aside from a few moments that drag out a bit too long, The Muppets is a rare flawless movie. The filmmakers pulled all the right strings (so to speak) and called all the right shots. Jason Segal, who co-wrote the script with Nicholas Stoller, took what already was a winning formula and simply made a storyline that blended well with it. Don’t fix what isn’t broken is sometimes easier said than done, but The Muppets knows that after all this time, it still has a good thing going.
Critic’s rating: 4 and a half out of 5 stars
Daniel Feingold can be reached at dfeingold91@gmail.com.