Muppets Most Wanted. The review part of this review is going to be kind of short because theres not really all that much to say about the movie. So Ill start with this: I freaking love the Muppets. I love Kermit, I love Fozzy, I love Rizzo, I love that annoying cockroach thing with the accent, I even love it when they break the fourth wall. I especially love Gonzo, that blessed blue thing. You see, the Muppets have always been a puppet vaudeville that not only embraced cheap laughs, they built the entire act acknowledging they were getting off on cheap laughs. It meant that the Muppets could use this self-awareness and turn their cheap laughs into comedy gold. Not only that, but at the same time making iconic characters that were not only instantly recognizable despite being identical to one another but also lovable. And because the premise is so simple and flexible, you can work the Muppets into almost any concept and make it work as puppet vaudeville. It was simple, but its simplicity made it absolutely genius. And you cant have one Muppet without the rest, and they all just fit together so well. Even with Lew Zealand, the Muppet with a clown nose and circus clothes that throws fish like a boomerang. As long as you had the right people behind it, it would work out and be funny. That was why you could retell the Christmas Carol- the most tired Christmas story since the Nativity and it would still be funny. As long as you keep them self-aware and make them do something outrageous, they were timeless and you could make movie after movie without the material getting old. When they rebooted the franchise a couple years ago, they were making an enormous risk. Jim Henson was long since dead, and Disney had consumed all the rights like the money sucking Lovecraftian abomination it is, and you could guarantee that they werent going to give it the respect it deserved because the Jim Henson company has no rights to it anymore. Youd expect them to replace the puppets with CGI or put them in teenage comedy-dramas where Fozzy wakes up and hes seventeen again or something. But then someone sacrificed a goat to the gods and they gifted us with a group of people who would make a good Muppets movie with Disney while retaining what made the Muppets who they were. What we got was the reboot the franchise deserved. The Muppets was hilarious, it retained its self-reflexive humor, all the characters stayed true to who they were, the plot allowed them all moments to shine, the silly musical numbers were there and everything. A franchise built around self-awareness in an era where irony and post-modernism is whats in, they fit right in. So they made a sequel to the reboot, because thats what you do with the Muppets, you keep running with them and see what you can do. Without Jason Segel, though, the story lost some of its enthusiasm and heart. It retains its Muppetness, and the opening of the movie is absolutely perfect. The whole movie is aware that the Muppets have essentially been dead for the past decade and now that theyve rebooted theyve got to go somewhere. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie just kind of goes downhill from there. Muppet movies have never really been about the story, the plot was always just a setup to get the Muppets to do funny things. Thats why there was always several live actors with them to carry along the story, along with Kermit who usually plays straight man. In this one, theres only one plot important live action character, but hes the villain. The Muppets themselves really cant hold a story on their own, so most of the movie centers around Ricky Gervais and Constantine, an evil Kermit lookalike, pulling the bulk of the story while the rest of the Muppets are in the background simply reacting to whatever Constantine does disguised as Kermit, until the final act of the movie where they put Walt from the last movie to use. Constantine and Gervais are funny, but theyre only joke is that Constantines Kermit impression is funny because of his Russian accent and Gervais tends to gets the shaft. The rest of the plot is handled by Kermit in a Russian prison, playing with Tina Fey and its interesting to see the chemistry between the two. I have to say, Tina Fey and the Muppets? Why hasnt anyone thought of this before? Her brand of comedy works perfectly with the Muppets! Why is she only acting in it? She would be perfect in other works with them! Anyways, the subplot with Kermit and Fey in prison is marginally better than the main plot but it also has to play second fiddle to the badguys. Kermit getting to play straightman in an environment where he has to make friends with dangerous Russian inmates and prison guards is a great setup for some fantastic scenes. Overall, the movie maintains its Muppetness and keeps up with the Muppet style, but because it focuses too much on the story based around The Great Muppet Caper and not enough on the characters this movie is really just kind of meh. Its a direct sequel, and as quoted from the movie, sequels are never quite as good. See it if youre a Muppet fan, and are particularly fond of The Great Muppet Caper, a much better Muppet movie based around the same plot, you might as well go see it. Other than that, I would just wait until they come around again with another Muppet movie. Maybe theyll adapt another timeless classic into a Muppet movie. Le Mis, anyone? - The Cynic
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 01:03:42 +0000
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