Katherine Thomson reviews The Muppets for buzz extra.

 Rating:

The audience are a mixed bunch: young parents with rowdy toddlers and mortified eleven-year-olds, stoned teenagers, baby boomers trying to recapture adolescent times and students nostalgic for an imagined ’70s heyday. The Muppets brings everyone together with its hard “one size fits all” sell, which is a dangerous feat to attempt. Some Muppet methods are more transparent than others; at one point Whoopie Goldberg turns up with Selena Gomez in tow. Generally, though, director James Bobin does the late Jim Henson proud.

A healthy dose of nostalgia aimed at life-long fans threatens to weigh down the film, but it bobs up with surprisingly fresh humour, courtesy of the quirky soundtrack by Flight of the Conchords‘ Bret McKenzie to keep the Mighty Boosh generation sweet. Kids shriek with laughter at slapstick comedy only achievable with fuzzy-felt bodies, and for everyone else there are those comedy staples of good, old fashioned Muppet jokes. Some characters really surpass themselves; Gonzo’s zaniness translates well into the British taste for the surreal while Animal, kidnapped by Kermit and co from anger management rehab, is brilliantly mental.

Though many gags are obvious and some sentiment is sickly sweet, a constant self-deprecating edge pulls the film back from the brink of twee. But it’s not without its disappointments; the calibre of star guests doesn’t reach the dizzying heights the Muppets cameos used to (Jack Black is surely the marmite of the comedy world), and the main hero Walter, in a bid to be inoffensive, comes off as slightly boring.

Bobin and co-writer Jason Segal don’t bend over backwards to please audiences. There’s a retention of innocence here that shirks the plastic staleness of 21st century kids’ films. They haven’t succumbed to modern times so much that Kermit’s moral summation is dropped; neither have then been afraid to take a pop or two at American culture. When it comes, the moral is an old one but startlingly refreshing, with an ambitious attempt to redefine “success”. The film escapes pretension though, with the moral of the story playing second fiddle to a performance of Cee Lo Green by all-singing, all-dancing chickens.

Image Source: Disney

This entry was posted on Friday, February 24th, 2012 at 11:31 and is filed under Buzz Extra, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.