The Muppets (U)

Alison Rowat's Review

All together now: it’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights, it’s time to meet the Muppets on The Muppet Show tonight ...

Cut to mortified children in the cinema wondering why their parents are grinning like eejits over a crooning frog and a pig in a wig. What’s with the ping pong balls for eyes, ma? Where’s the 3D, dad? It’s like Avatar never happened.

But in the minds of mum and dad, the clock has wound back to Sunday afternoons in the 1970s, the last time the Muppets ruled the televisual waves and all was well-ish with the world. Can it be so again?

The economic future may be a Rumfeldian known unknown but The Muppets movie is a solid bet for funny, smart, family entertainment, even for cinemagoers too young to know their Rowlf the dog from Rolf Harris, their Animal from their vegetable-chopping Swiss chef. Just retro enough to please the grown-up, and sufficiently welcoming to a new audience, director James Bobin has created a candy-coloured, tune-strewn world designed to karate chop cynicism, Miss Piggy-style.

This is the eighth Muppets movie, making it a franchise to rival that of Harry Potter. As with Potter, some films have been better than others, with the early fizz of the first Muppet movie, called, ingeniously, The Muppet Movie, and the hits of The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island mingling with some underwhelming others.

Their last outing was 2005’s The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz, which turned out to be a far from wizard affair.

Bobin’s film stars Amy Adams and Jason Segel as Gary and Mary, two wholesome types from Smalltown, USA. To celebrate their tenth anniversary of dating (that’s how wholesome they are), the couple take Gary’s muppet brother, Walter, the self-styled world’s biggest Muppet fan, to LA to see the theatre where the superstars performed.

But all is not well down memory lane way. The theatre is falling down, and, worse, is soon to fall into the hands of a property developing tycoon, Tex Richman (Chris Cooper playing gloriously against serious, fretting type). What can Gary and Mary do but help Walter round up the Muppets and try to save the theatre?

Lots of grins and laughs are to be had as the movie takes to the road. We find out what became of Fozzie, Animal, Miss Piggy and the rest, with various big-name guest stars making cameo appearances. In keeping with the plan to attract young audiences as well as keep the post-thirtysomething crowd happy, some are more recognisable than others.

I won’t name too many names to avoid spoiling the surprises, but enough to say that this is the funniest Jack Black has been since School of Rock.

Wisely, the script by Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Nicholas Stoller (Yes Man) doesn’t simply rely on renewing auld acquaintances to generate laughs. There are nods to the hokey conventions of musical comedies past, the mass dance routine being one of them, and plenty of movie in-jokes.

All of this is done with affection rather than a sneer. Unlike other retro movies, this is a film out to include rather than exclude people. All are welcome to join the Muppet Appreciation Society.

The songs are unashamedly sunny side up, with some exceptions, such as the Oscar-nominated Man or Muppet by Bret McKenzie, though even that has its funny moments.

The script is on the money too. The scene where a brash, ratings-obsessed television executive tells the Muppets their heyday is long behind them and what young people want now are shows such as the fictional TV reality show Punch Teacher, hits the mark nicely.

Whether the Muppets can cut it with a younger audience is a question the film addresses head on. As Kermit says with a sigh as his efforts to get the show back on the road falter: “I guess people sort of forgot about us.”

So why, indeed, make a comeback now, and will a younger generation, brought up on Transformers and Avatar, dig this foam and fake fur bunch?

Bobin, having raised fears that today’s Muppets will be about as hip and happening as yesterday’s Betamax, goes all out to convince with a bombardment of songs, dances, daft one-liners, canny jokes and the natural charm of Segel and Adams.

Adams in particular skips through the material like Snow White after a lottery win, all smiles and twirls. If you can’t warm to this woman you’ve got hypothermia.

The Muppets is a big studio picture like many other, slickly done and engineered to please. It’s out for box office bucks, of course it is, but Bobin’s movie goes about the job of entertaining the audience in such a winning way you’ll be happy to play and hum along.

Even the heckling duo of Statler and Waldorf, far wiser critics than your correspondent, would be pleased at how this one has turned out. All together now ...

Paul Greenwood's Review

Everyone’s favourite felt puppets return for their first big screen outing in over a decade, to try to thwart an evil businessman (Chris Cooper) who plans to tear down the Muppets’ old theatre.

Kermit must get all the gang (Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, and of course the divine diva Miss Piggy), who haven’t seen each other in years, back together so they can put on a show to raise the money to save it.

Helping them out are human pals in the shape of Amy Adams and Jason Segel, who also wrote the delightful screenplay that’s affectionate, self-aware and very funny indeed.

The result is a joyous confection, brimming with appeal for kids and adults alike, with silly yet smart songs from Flight of the Conchords star Bret McKenzie and any number of celebrity cameos.