The Muppets (2011)

Seeing this with a double feature of Martin Scorsese’s beautiful film Hugo, I am forced to not like this film as much as I would on my own, because I love Hugo, and do not love this film. I like this film, I just don’t love it. The film has parts that are extremely funny, and parts that are groan-worthy. But did the 1,000 screaming kids in my theater care? Nope. They are so annoying…But that is for another day. The first theatrical Muppets film in twelve years, The Muppets chronicles a lonely puppet named Walter who loves The Muppets. He and his human brother Gary (Jason Segel…but…what?) and Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) go to see Muppet Studios, only to find it completely run down. They find the Muppets, and get them together to make $10 million to save Muppet studios from evil oil monopolist Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) who plans to drill for oil under the studios, and destroy them. The film is simple enough for a kid’s film, a save-the-rec-center film, nothing more. And as one of those films, it’s not a bad film, I just wish that people would realize that and not say it’s a brilliant piece of art, because it is only playing on nostalgia. There are some very clever and funny bits in here, and it is a good film, but it’s not a great film. For example, there is a scene where Chris Cooper is rapping, and I was laughing so hard I think some of the small children in the theater were scared of me, but there were moments that were so groan-inducing where everybody was laughing-that’s when they should have been scared of me. There are some wonderful musical numbers, this is probably the best musical film since Hairspray, but Hairspray was a good bit better than this.
8/10