6/5/2023 0 Comments Muppet movie screenit![]() Kermit is haunting the halls of a huge mansion, unfulfilled. The question raised by the film is “are the Muppets still relevant in 2011?” No one’s quite sure.Īll of this is, of course, an elaborate setup for us to rediscover the Muppets again. Enter Segel as Gary (a human) and his Gary’s brother Walter (a puppet), who happen upon the plan and proceed to get the old gang back together and save their past with one last telethon performance of The Muppet Show. The contract contains a hitch, however - if the Muppets can raise two million dollars to save the establishment, they get it back. The plot is somewhat inconsequential, of course, but here it holds water: a billionaire oil magnate named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper, having some fun) has discovered oil underneath the dilapidated, forgotten Muppet Theater, and has purchased it to tear it down. The result is a very faithful throwback to not just the Muppet movies of yore, but the Muppet Show itself. And we should be very glad someone like Segel, a true fan, did that. It’s long been storied that Jason Segel, he of the Apatow man-boy fests and How I Met Your Mother, championed the project himself, conceiving of the idea, writing the script and meeting with studios to get it made. I’m happy, then, to report today that The Muppets is as true of a Muppet film as has ever been put on screen. I figured it was a longshot how many times recently has something from our childhoods actually been accurately replicated many years later? I wanted, I suppose, to feel again what I used to feel for the characters. I wanted the Muppets to be just as I remembered them, no tweaking. I desperately didn’t want to be disappointed, but was a wee bit prepared to be. So it was with slight trepidation I went into their foray of The Muppets. They’re just plain wonderful pieces of entertainment. It’s a beloved institution, and even though lesser Muppet films like Muppet Treasure Island or Muppets in Space diluted the proceedings slightly, there’s really nothing like the original Muppet Show or the first Muppet film trilogy - The Muppet Movie, the Great Muppet Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan. That said, I do have a very purist soft spot for the Muppets and really, who doesn’t? Kermit, after all, debuted on television in 1955, and the Muppets have maintained a constance presence in many of our childhoods and popped up here and there again from time to time in our adult lives. I take with a grain of salt the constant meddling and re-meddling George Lucas continues to do to his Star Wars franchise, and though I was disappointed in it, I took Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in stride, opting to look for the good than damn it altogether. Weirdest bit: There’s fierce competition, but it’s probably the talking sandwich.I don’t go into “crazy fanboy” mode often I could care less if the Green Lantern’s suit doesn’t accurately reflect changes made to it in issue #263 or that Frodo Baggins’ rucksack isn’t tied with the appropriate type of string. It's up to Kermit and the gang to rescue Gonzo and help reunite him with his long-lost family.” Simplest IMDb summary: “After Gonzo receives messages from his breakfast cereal, he determines that he is an extra-terrestrial and tries to contact his alien brethren, but is captured by an overzealous secret government agency determined to prove the existence of otherworldly life. They’re completely different species! An amazing, amazing joke just for the writers of the movie, really.” It’s never really referred to again, but it’s an amazing idea. That’s a very meta idea from the very beginning. ![]() And there's Lew Zealand and his boomerang fish act! You can’t fail to love Lew Zealand and his boomerang fish act. ![]() The pre-credits section features a few brilliant gags, including Sweetums asking “Is this seat taken?” before wrenching the cinema recliner in question out of the floor and walking off with it. ***Weirdest bit: ***It’s a film-within-a-film, which is inherently weird. Persuaded by an agent to pursue acting, he hops west towards Hollywood! Tagging along: Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, 'The Great Gonzo', and a motley group of Muppets help dodge evil Doc Hopper and a cameo-filled cast on the trek to Tinseltown!” ***Simplest IMDb summary: ***“Kermit the frog wants fame. ![]()
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