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Sunday, February 19, 2012

Mahna Mahna! The Muppets are back



What's your favorite Muppets movie? The Muppets Takes Manhattan? The Muppets Christmas Carol? Muppets From Space? Well, I think this comeback movie beats all of them.
I've been a fan of The Muppets for as long as I can remember and I've been looking forward to seeing the new film. When I had to spend time in hospital as a little kid in the early 80's I have fond memories of watching The Muppet Show on television while in my sick bed.



This is the first theatrical Muppet film in 13 years (the last one being Muppets From Space) and despite the straight to dvd stories they have starred in a new movie has been a long time coming. I was also interested as the story was written by actor and life long Muppet fan Jason Segel, who also stars in the film.

The story revolves around an evil businessman named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) who's plotting to tear down the Muppet theater and drill for oil beneath it. Three big Muppet fans named Gary (Jason Segel), Gary's girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) and Gary's puppet brother Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) discover this while touring the old abandoned theater. They learn that the only way to save the Muppet theater is to raise $10 million so they go searching for Kermit (voiced by legendary Muppet performer Steve Whitmire) to let him know. Kermit and his new friends then decide to go on a road trip to find the other Muppets (who have all split up) and devise a plan to put on a fundraiser show in order to raise the money to save the theater.


With this in mind I don't know if I was expecting a different plot but the "Saving the theater" scenario has already been done a number of times in The Muppet universe. Not that this bothered me though as this was a huge nostalgia trip. All the classic Muppets I loved when little were here and I liked even some of the more obscure ones were given centre stage to shine.
The cameos from lots of Hollywood celebrities were absolutely hilarious. My favourites of these were Jack Black and (although he's not even in it for more than five minutes) Dave Grohl. His cameo as The Moopets drummer Animool had me in stitches.
The songs in the film were great and were lovely, touching and in some cases side splitting funny. I won't tell you what my favourite song was but it was performed by the guys in the picture below.

Overall this was a wonderful film which adults and kids will enjoy for years to come. If you haven't seen this yet then you should go ASAP and take the kids with you as well. It's already one of my favourite films of the year. And because it's done so well at the box office I'm guessing (and hoping) a sequel is already in the works. My only gripe? Where was Rizo? Anyway...

In the film when it looks like The Muppets are no longer important Kermit has a line -

"I guess we have been forgotten." - Kermit.

No you were never forgotten Kermit. I'm glad to see you back. And judging from the popularity of the film, so are others.