The Muppets (2011)
Not nearly as good as it should have been, that it is still a generally fun romp is down to the sheer likability of the franchise but a fatal flaw almost sinks it from the beginning.
Segal, as co-writer, is clearly in love with The Muppets. And spends a lot of the movie telling us this. Unfortunately what it forgets to do for the first half hour is actually give us the fucking Muppets he keeps saying are so cool. There's some good stuff here, a delightful musical number which involves a whole small town population but it takes too long to get to Kermit and then too long to get the group together.
Luckily when it does the movie shifts up a gear and delivers us what it promises. The flimsy plot is an excuse for some jokes and a host of cameos from culty comedians mostly simply placed for recognition value, (love seeing Donald Glover here but why have someone as brilliant as he is do almost literally nothing) though Jim Parsons personification of a human Muppet is splendid.
The songs are mostly very good, Chris Cooper just about keeps a rap number on the right side of cringe-worthy but some of the gags fall flat, a victim to the movies uneven tone and a lack of certainty over who it's target audience is. Certainly at the screening I was at one of the earliest big laughs from the kids in the audience came from a clip of the old show and not from anything new.
No comments:
Post a Comment