The Muppets: Review

By Spence Blazak

Up until last week, only three things in this world intimidated me: spiders, looking into a blue eyed woman's eyes, and Kermit the Frog. I'll explain. I had a stuffed Kermit the Frog as a boy that would talk when you squeezed him. The doll held a camera for some reason. Also, he said 3 different sayings, with the most memorable being "ITS PICTURE TIME, PIGGY". One day, his voice box broke. That was when, as Abraham Lincoln once said, "Shit got real." At all hours of the night, his hellish wires would touch, causing me to wake up from a deep sleep for "PICTURE TIME."

This made me hate Kermit and his friends.

I lived a life of emptiness. The lack of Muppets in my heart left a void like a black hole. I tried to fill it in with different things: love, vices, the world itself. In the end, nothing could ever truly compare to the Muppets. This is why I was so excited when The Muppets was released. It gave me a chance to be….a whole man again.

I'm sorry, I have to keep my streak up of starting off my film reviews with introductions that have a flare for the dramatic. Anyway, The Third Man is generally considered one of the best movies of all time, and in one of my favorite quotes from it, a character describes his friend by saying, "He never grew up. The world grew up around him." The Muppets is made for people like that. People like me. I'm not going to lie, if you're in a bad mood, there is a very good chance you will hate everything about it. On the other hand, it just might be your most enjoyable movie experience of the year.

The story follows Walter, a muppet who lives in Kansas. Being raised by humans, he has had a tough life. While growing up with his brother Gary (Jason Segel), he took solace in the Muppets. In the present, he has an obsession with Kermit the Frog that can be compared only to my obsession with Taylor Swift. Yeah. That's right. HE EVEN HAS A WATCH WITH HIS FACE ON IT. But anyway, he goes for an adventure out to the Muppets studio with Gary and his lady friend (Amy Adams). Once in Hollywood, they discover that the studio is going to be bought and destroyed by a Texas oil tycoon, and Walter must help Kermit round up the Muppets, raise 10 million dollars, and save the day! This shit cray!

Here's the lowdown. Jason Segel wrote the script, which is his first since Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and it plays exactly like a G-rated version of the movie that made him a star. The mark of many great comedians is to be able to succeed at several different types of comedy, and with The Muppets, Segel has made a case for being one of the former by mastering the latter. Its exactly what you want from a Muppet movie: a mix of clever and absurd. Little moments like Kermit wearing a black turtleneck for his Paris date with Ms. Piggy or Fozzie getting on the Muppets shoulders, putting on an over coat and mustache, then waltzing his way into a meeting as "Muppet Man" had me rolling in the aisles. The soundtrack, written by Brett McKenzie (the one from Flight of the Conchords who doesn't look like me) is a little bit lacking, but "Am I a Muppet or a Man?" is glorious, and will give Captain America's "The Star Spangled Man" a run for Best Original Song at the Oscars. Well……its not that good, but still….Also, the slew of celebrity cameos are almost all hilarious. My favorite being political dynamo James Carvile as a telephone operator for the Muppet telethon.

All in all, The Muppets is charming and filled with that Muppet-humor you are expecting. If Muppets in Space is a 2 star movie, and The Muppet Movie is a 4 star one, then The Muppets is a solid 3 stars.