Film Review: The Muppets

The Muppets. Rated G. 110 minutes. Directed by James Bobin. Screenplay by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller.

Throughout the mid to late 1970s and early 1980s, it was impossible to get enough of Jim Henson’s adorable Muppets – who began life in 1969 as the puppet stars of Sesame Street. Fortuitously, Mr Henson embarked on a mission to expand his audience – and with the backing of impresario Lew Grade, The Muppet Show premiered in 1976.

The 120 episodes of The Muppet Show featured a “very special guest star” for whom a precious spot on the show was considered a career highlight, while Henson’s marvellously quirky and musically ambitious characters – including Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, Dr Teeth, Electric Mayhem, Beaker and The Swedish Chef – were soon celebrated the world over.

The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) were hugely successful cinematic incarnations, but by 2005’s The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, the franchise’s appeal appeared to have been exhausted.

Tastes had changed – and Kermit and friends were effectively retired.

And so with generous lashings of nostalgia, Mr Segel and Stoller’s joyfully self-reflective script takes us into the world of the, now, retired Muppets. Gary (Mr Segel) and his Muppet brother Walter (Peter Linz) are indefatigable Muppet fans, so when Gary decides to take his long-suffering girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) on holiday in Los Angeles, the motivation is to visit the old Muppet Studios and Theatre. When Walter inadvertently overhears Tex Richman’s (Chris Cooper) plot to demolish the historic theatre and drill for oil in the ground beneath it, the trio track down Kermit and encourage him to get the Muppets back together again and put on a show to save their precious theatre and studios.

Mr Bobin (The Flight of the Conchords) establishes a light and breezy tone for the film early and never wavers – while the requisite cameos (including Jack Black, Whoopi Goldberg, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Selena Gomez and Mickey Rooney) are all handled delightfully.

But it is the reassembling of the old Muppet gang that is supremely entertaining (Miss Piggy, for example, is now the Plus Size Editor of French Vogue) and as they bring their Muppet Telethon to life to raise the money to save their theatre, it is impossible to resist the temptation to stand up and cheer. And when the Oscar-nominated “Rainbow Connection” makes its appearance, it’s equally impossible not be overwhelmingly moved by just how influential these extraordinary little puppets once were. And still are.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.