Movie Review: The Muppets

            This is a review. For a movie. A very awful movie. A movie I thoroughly did not enjoy. At all. This is a review for The Muppets. And I cannot speak of the atrocities within the time wasted by watching this movie. However, for the blog, I will write them.
            Before I even considered seeing this, my oldest brother Matt informed me that the original Muppeteers were NOT pleased with this attempt at movie making. In fact, they openly and STRONGLY opposed it. I wasn’t sure if they were just being picky, but after watching the movie….I can do nothing but agree.

            Now, I’m sure you’re asking if I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the travesty inflicted upon the Muppets and their character. Believe me, this is a girl who GREW UP with the Muppets. “Muppets Tonight”, “The Muppet Show”, Muppet Treasure Island, Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppets Take Manhattan, The Muppet Movie, all this and more in my repertoire, thank you very much. That said…into the breach.

            The movie begins in inanely dubbed “Smalltown, USA”….If you could see the look on my face right now….Ugh. In Smalltown, kids love school and women wear dresses and act as if they belong on the Donna Reed Show. Men are snazzy and do their jobs with a smile. Heck, EVERYONE smiles. At all times. It’s sickening. Our three main characters live here: Gary (Jason Segel), Mary (Amy Adams), and Walter (an abomination). They head out to California to visit the Muppets studios, and Walter discovers that it’s about to be torn down by sickeningly-wealthy oil barren Tex Richman (whose name, by the way, is so effortlessly developed, it’s like the producers are trying to brainwash our kids to the 1% and capitalism!...wait, perhaps they ARE). And why is Tex Richman trying to tear down the studios? For oil. Of course. ANYWAY, they recruit Kermit and the others to put on one last Muppet Show to raise ten million dollars (in one night) to save the studios. Now, you may say, “What’s wrong with that?” Oh-hoh. Let me tell you. (I’ll try to be brief)

The Abomination

            Problem Number One: Kermit needs a Prozac. The little green guy I grew up with is…NOT the same in this movie. He’s evasive and depressed and generally blue more than green.

            Problem Number Two: The songwriting. The lyrics are quick, yes, but that’s it in regards to similarity with the original Muppet Show (click here to see what I mean). The simplistic stupidity and sappiness prickles my writer’s sense with annoyance. “A Me-Party?” Really? And the whole “Man or Muppet” sequence was completely muddled with mucked up lyrics and a sense of “what the heck did I just stumble into?” MAN this movie needed Paul Williams.

            Problem Number Three: The Muppets. The characters were marred from their true selves, and seeing them so differently made me shudder where I sat. I contemplated leaving theater 4 multiple times, but for the sake of the blog, I stayed.

            Problem Number Four: Tex Richman’s “maniacal laugh”. Do you  know what it was? Lower your voice and say “maniacal laugh” a few times. THAT’S what it was. He’s no villain. He’s a soft-shelled rich dude in a poorly produced movie.

            Problem Number Five: Walter’s “talent” at the end. It was 1) random, 2) not true to the Muppet spirit, as nothing went wrong with the performance, and 3) ear-scrapingly annoying.

            Problem Number Six: The story was hard to believe. Ten million dollars in one night? Yeah, okay.

            Problem Number Seven (last one, for lack of space): The musical numbers came out of nowhere. You’d be watching and BAM! Musical number. I found myself thinking “Where the heck did that come from!?” And…see note about lyrics above.

Now imagine blazing flames and a bunch of people with picket signs

            So, briefly, I wish I had not subjected myself to such soul-destroying torture that was The Muppets. To sum it up, it was like an amateur puppet show, bad children’s programming, 1950s “perfection”, and the writer’s strike desperation collided in a heap of screaming, twisted metal that burst into flame and vomited black ash into the air.  I could go on, but for your sake…. The movie gets 1/7 of a kernel out of 5