The Sound of Your Childhood Crashing Back
Oh that's right: It was the entirety of all that was best about my long-lost childhood crammed into the space of two hours. And the knowledge that our world is closer to the brink of destruction now than it was in those totally debauched, but still more innocent, times we refer to as the 1980s.
Sniffle.
The Muppets is wonderful -- one of the best of the year -- for a bunch of reasons, heartrending nostalgia among them. It's only fair that you should be warned, just in case you, like me, learned about everything from Stevie Wonder to sarcasm to Spanish from a squadron of furry monsters.
The Muppets succeeds where so many kids' movies fail becaus:
1. It isn't ironic. Jason Segel wrote this movie with tongue positioned about 45,000 miles away from his cheek.
2. The songs are great, but there aren't too many of them. Not once did I think, "Ugh, please, no more singing!"
3. Hilarious cameos. These have always been a staple of The Muppets, both in their movies, their eponymous Show and their even more famous and more beloved sibling Sesame Street. It's always been a badge of honor for sweet celebrities -- high-brow and low -- to sing a song or learn a lesson from a creature with a hand shoved up his or her cloaca. This one could have done without Selena Gomez, that was a throwaway, and it certainly would have benefited from more Kristen Schaal and Sarah Silverman, but it's number-one cameo, Jack Black as a version of himself, is a real stand-out.
As for the human characters, they're okay. Jason Segel plays Gary, a completely wholesome version of his not-very-wholesome usual, while Amy Adams, as Mary, is the same as she is in every other children's movie she's been in. Remember how funny she was in Taladega Nights? Making out with Ricky Bobby on that bar table? This is not the same Amy Adams.
Anyway, Gary and Mary are very longterm sweethearts, and she wonders why he's dragging his feet on popping the question. The reason is Gary's diminutive brother, Walter, an obviously nonhuman young man who has an obsession with the old time Muppets Show. (This could be because he himself is a Muppet, but whatever.) The trio take a trip to LA, where they learn that the now-bedraggled Muppet Theater is set to be torn down by an evil oil baron from Texas named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper). Word has it that oily Texans are boycotting this movie because of the realistic, I mean, pejorative, way in which this kids' movie portrays them. One assumes they will get over it.
Obviously, the only way on earth to save Muppet Theater is to get the old gang back together and stage a fundraising show. This marks the point when grown-ups feel their hearts swell and eyes well as we become wrapped in a thick cloud of squishy emotion. Regardless, the movie is worth every feeling it conjures up.
