Movie Review: The MUPPETS MOST WANTED

Disney
2014
PG

“I don’t believe it! They’ve managed the impossible! What an achievement! Bravo! Bravo!”
“What, you mean you actually like this show now?”
“No, they’ve made the show even worse!”

• Muppets Most Wanted takes the entire gang on a global tour, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe’s most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine–the World’s Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit–and his dastardly sidekick Dominic “Number Two” Badguy.

The sequel to 2011’s The Muppets was the one that I couldn’t watch in the theater when it was first released, mostly due to that nasty period in my life that I’m sure everybody is sick of reading about by now. As such, I didn’t get around to watching Muppets Most Wanted until it was released later that year on home video. I believe it was actually Thanksgiving Day that year when I watched it. Bittersweet time, this was.

Anyway, with this sequel, we didn’t get the return of co-writer and human co-star of The Muppets Jason Segel, because he felt he accomplished what he set out to do with the 2011 movie: Make a kick-butt old-school Muppet movie. Which he did. But, my all-time favorite Muppet movie growing up (and even now) wasn’t the 1979 original classic, but the 1981 sequel, The Great Muppet Caper. And if you’re going to make a kick-butt Muppet movie, you’re gonna have to make a kick-butt Muppet caper as a follow-up. And with Muppets Most Wanted, we have that follow-up.

With Muppets Most Wanted, we find the stars of The Muppets coming off of their triumphant comeback from the previous film, only to experience the Sophomore Slump with what to do next. Enter a guy named Dominic Badguy (that’s pronounced “badjee”, because it’s “French”), who convinces them to go on a European tour, with him as their tour manager. Meanwhile, a criminal mastermind named Constantine, who is a dead-ringer for Kermit the Frog (except for a tell-tale mole), manages to escape the Siberian Gulag he was held prisoner at, where we find out [SPOILERS] that Dominic Badguy was working for Constantine, and they have plans that involve getting Kermit thrown into the Gulag in Constantine’s place, and then the two go on a museum robbing spree using the Muppets’ Euro tour as a patsy. Wacky hijinks does ensue.

Personally, I kinda feel bad for not catching this in the theaters when it original was released. Muppets Most Wanted was just as good as the previous movie, and works as a great heist satire in and of itself. This really is The Great Muppet Caper 2.0, with the difference being I can’t recall any songs as memorable as the “Hey A Movie!” song (starring everybody, and me) and “Happiness Hotel”. Ricky Gervasis and Tina Fey were both great as the two main human stars in this flick, and the jokes and comedy beats land frequently, keeping the chuckles and belly laughs coming. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Muppet movie without the cameos, and Muppets Most Wanted is chock full of ’em. It makes for a fun game of Celebrity Bingo, if you’re so inclined.

Overall: Muppets Most Wanted was a great sequel to The Muppets. It boggles my mind to think that there hasn’t been another Muppet sequel since then. Regardless, though, this comes highly recommended.

Movie Review: The MUPPETS

Disney
2011
PG

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were reciting some sort of important plot point.”
“I hope so. Otherwise, I would’ve bored half the audience half to death.”
“You mean half the audience is still alive?”

• While on vacation in Los Angeles, Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, his brother Gary, and friend Mary uncover the diabolical plot of a greedy oil millionaire to destroy the Muppet Theater. Now, the Muppet-loving trio must reunite Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and their friends to stage the greatest Muppet telethon ever and save their beloved theater.

I remember the Great Muppet Dry Spell of the Aughts. The last theatrically-released Muppet movie was 1999’s Muppets From Space, and that one was…not good. It was better than the direct-to-video and television specials that were being released at the time; however, I remember watching that in one of Omaha’s Second-Run theaters at the time, when the price was still hovering around $1.50 a ticket, and thinking I may have been overcharged for the movie. Between the years of 2000 to 2010, we got a couple of televised Christmas specials, a broadcast of the Muppets’ take on The Wizard of Oz, and a direct-to-video prequel movie of sorts, as well as a web series featuring Statler and Waldorf, so it’s not like we were completely bereft of Muppet goodness. It’s just that, there hadn’t been an original theatrical movie since The Muppets Take Manhattan in 1984, let alone a good, fun movie since 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island.

Then, in 2008, it was announced by Disney that they were set to produce the first original Muppet movie in decades, and it was going to be helmed by a couple of uber-Muppet fanboys to boot. Things were looking up. Then word came out that it was going to be an old-school Muppet story, involving the entire gang of favorites, as well as some new characters, with a story that involved the gang being brought back together to help resurrect the Muppet Theater. I couldn’t wait. Then the film was finally released in 2011, and I went to see it with Boz-Man.

Sure, I may be just not getting around to pounding out a review of the movie. Don’t let that colour your impression of what the movie may be like. I’m just weird about getting reviews on stuff out, because I’m not paid to do ’em. However, as a Muppet movie, I have to give my own overly-enthusiastic two thumbs up on The Muppets.

Yes, The Muppets is very much a classic Muppet movie. Yes, I did laugh out loud at various, many points, sometimes with tears streaming down my face. Yes, this captures what made The Muppet Show essentially lightning in a bottle, and yet manages to do its own thing rather than rely on just nostalgia. And with maybe the exception of the “Me Party” segment, most of the musical numbers manages to hit the right places.

Overall: I never had the chance to watch the first two Muppet movies in the theater back in the day (or if I did, I was too young to remember doing so); watching The Muppets in the theater with other Muppet fans was one of the most memorable theater experiences I’ve had. This is something I still rewatch frequently. Highly recommended.

HALLOWEEN’ING 2014: Day 5 – Alice Cooper on the Muppet Show

If there’s one name synonymous with Halloween, for me it would be the name of Alice Cooper. For literally decades, the man behind both the band and then the solo artist mixed macabre theatrics and a wicked sense of humor with rock and roll, making for some great soundtrack mixes for Halloween.

My own personal obsession with Alice Cooper didn’t come about until the summer of 1989, when I first watched the video to the song “Poison”. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the song–and subsequently the album it’s derived from: Trash–changed my life. Well, maybe you could say discovering Alice Cooper, even at the hight of his so-called “hair metal” period, had a great influence on my personality. However you want to spin it, the fact remains that Alice Cooper remains one of my favorites to this day. He helps make every day feel like Halloween. And no matter how dark things get, you always get the sense that he really is in on the joke. That in the end, it’s really just a show, just entertainment, something you shouldn’t really take all that seriously.

Which is why it’s no surprise that he once appeared on an episode of the legendary Muppet Show back in 1978.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really remember watching a lot of The Muppet Show back when it was originally on the air. Despite what you young’uns may think of your Uncle NecRo, I was fairly young back then, and didn’t really catch many episodes until much later in the show’s run, when I was beginning to stay up a bit past dinner time. So, I never got to witness Alice Cooper appearing on The Muppet Show on October 28th, 1978, marking this as an official Halloween episode of the show. But, again due to the wondrous and magical age in which we live in, I can catch up with my misappropriated youth by way of YouTube-ing the episodes.

In this episode, Alice Cooper has some gleefully creepy fun with the cast of Muppets, being the (probable) cause of many eerie and weird things happening in the theater: a blue spectre coming out of Gonzo’s trumpet, a giant germ attacking Beaker, turning Miss Piggy into a bird creature-thing, and enticing certain cast members into selling their souls for fame and fortune. Among other things. In between, Alice Cooper performs his classics “Welcome To My Nightmare”, “You And Me” and “School’s Out”, while Kermit’s nephew Robin performs a pretty straight forward (and rather out-of-place feeling) rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, but one could argue that’s because of Fozzy complaints of wanting “one thing nice on this show tonight” in the bit immediately prior.

Overall, this episode is great Halloween fun. It’s a pity I wasn’t able to enjoy it when it first aired. Check it out some time. Here, I’ll conveniently embed the episode for you:

You’re welcome.

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