The Muppets User Reviews

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“Statler: I always dreamed we'd be back here.

Waldorf: Dreams? Those were nightmares! “

- The Muppets

Can they be brought back?

With the New Year, I have a new resolution: To watch at least 52 films in theaters and review them all. With all the great movies I missed last year, I thought I’d get it started ASAP with a movie I’ve been dying to see since they sang Bohemian Rhapsody on youtube. I’m of course talking about Disney’s The Muppets! Now let’s get this started.

The Muppets! I’ll admit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an entire episode of their original show, and I’ve only seen a handful of their movies, but after watching this film, I feel like I need to go back and watch them all. The movie stars Jason Segel, Amy Adams, and the entire Muppet ensamble. The star that truly steals the show is the newly introduced Muppet, Walter. He's Segel’s brother, and that's never really explained how or why. The plot is simple: A rich businessman bought the old Muppet Theater with the hopes to knock it down, so it’s up to Walter to stop him by bringing back the entire Muppet gang to do a comeback show. With a plot like this, it gives newer audiences a chance to meet the Muppets, while the older moviegoers can sit back and enjoy the nostalgia. I think the film does an excellent job in that regard.

That one Muppet in the back left? He'd scare the sh*t out of you in person.

As a diehard Muppet fan himself, Jason Segel co-wrote the script. Going into the movie, I had no idea that this was gonna be a musical. I should have known better. It was fantastic. The songs were awesome. Another great thing about the writing was that this movie played on the fact that, yes, the cast knows they’re in a movie, and, yes, nobody knows who the Muppets even are anymore. I thought that it was very unique and really funny… for the first couple of jokes. You know that friend of yours that always reminds you how funny that one part of that movie was, and then when you go watch it again, it's not funny anymore because that guy ruined it for you? That’s kind of what it was like. Don’t get me wrong, it was great to see Fozzy break the fourth wall a few times, but those jokes get real old, real fast. They kind of even addressed that in the film itself. It was weird.

DRUM! DRUM!!!!

My favorite Muppets have always been Beaker, Swedish Chef, and Animal. With the first two, they get about as much screen time as Jay and Silent Bob did in the first Clerks movie. You love ‘em, but you just wanna see more of them. Animal, however, totally knocked it out of the park. They gave him his own little storyline in the movie, and it was epic. Gonzo, Fozzy, and Ms. Piggy also had their own little side stories, but Animal’s is the one you’re really interested in.

"In... Control...." -Animal

This movie also had a huge cast of guest stars. You had the obvious ones like Jack Black, Sarah Silverman, and Neil Patrick Harris, but you also had the surprise ones like Whoopie Goldberg, and John Krazinski (Jim from The Office), Zach Galifinakis, and Mickey Rooney (he’s still alive?). The whole cast, guest stars included, seemed to have a lot of fun working on the film, and I think that kind of chemistry is important when you’re working on anything, especially a movie like this.

Poor guy must've just saw Cars...

I really enjoyed this movie, but now I gotta vent on something that’s gonna cost this movie a whole point off their final score. I get Disney. I know they’re a huge corperation and I know they like to market their cute, little, franchises and such, but this is where they drew a line. Towards the end of the movie, there’s a gigantic crowd in the streets of Hollywood. As the camera zooms out and pans over the crowds and buildings below, right in the middle of the screen is a billboard. The billboard was an advertisement for Cars 2. Cars... 2... The worst Pixar film ever made. Disney’s desperate. They screwed up. We get it. But in the middle of what was supposed to be a heartwarming scene, Cars 2 is the absolute LAST thing I want to be thinking about. They weren’t even being suddle with it either. It was in the middle of the damn screen, and it was zoomed in close enough for me to see the poster for that horrible abortion to a good line of films. I understand it’s not Segel's or Kermit’s fault, but that’s something that irritated me, and I’m not gonna be nice about it. Cars sucked, and its sequel sucked even harder. That's another review for another time. I'm done.

Statler and Waldorf: The original Trolls.

Anyway, this movie was great. The music was catchy, and the dancing scenes were fun. The jokes were great until they got repetitive. Segel did a great job starring and co-writing, and the Muppets are officially back on their feet, strings, sticks, or whatever they use to stand up on. Hopefully this movie means that we’ll be getting a revival of the Muppet Show, but until then, I’ll totally be getting this movie on Blu-Ray when it’s available. It was fun, and I give it a solid 8 out of 10. It wasn't exactlyAvatar by any stretch of the imagination, but it was fun for everyone. If you don't like the Muppets, at least see it for the awesome Toy Story short before the beginning of the film. That's worth the ticket price alone.