Kermit says the f-word in The Muppets – not ‘frog’ but ‘family’ (as in ‘We are a family’) which, to be honest, was never what the Muppets were all about. The denizens of The Muppet Show, the late-70s TV show that marked a generation, were by no means saccharine; they were showbiz hucksters, old-time vaudevillians donning faded props and costumes, doing whatever it took to keep the show going from one song number to the next. Calling the Muppets “goody-goody” relics who’ve become irrelevant in a “hard, cynical world” – as implied here – is nostalgia of the worst kind, the kind that’s nostalgic not so much for the actual show as the simple childhood days one associates with it.
Still, that’s bound to happen when a film is made by fans as opposed to gimlet-eyed executives – and make no mistake, the people behind this film (especially Jason Segel, who co-wrote and co-stars) are huge Muppet fans. Unlike The Smurfs or Tintin, which paid no more than lip-service to their originals, The Muppets teems with love for Kermit and Co., to the point where it almost becomes embarrassing; anyone coming to it cold may feel like an atheist on Good Friday. “As long as there are Swedish chefs and boomerang fish … As long as there are Muppets, there’s still hope,” sighs Walter, excitable kid brother of Gary (played by Segel). Then again, it’s no surprise that Walter loves the Muppets – because Walter is a Muppet, a sweet and ingenious way of linking the detached, know-better adult (Gary/Segel) and his besotted inner child.
The film has a double quest: Gary’s quest to get Walter settled, i.e. get some closure on his childhood nostalgia – after which, implicitly, he can marry his sweetheart Mary, played by Amy Adams – and the Muppets’ quest to raise money so their old theatre won’t be razed to the ground by evil developer Tex Richman (Chris Cooper). Like its twin heroes – a man and a Muppet – the film tries to have it both ways, both sincere and ironic. Corny clichés are played straight, then subverted. Mary sings a sad song, looking out the window at a rainy day – then it turns out the ‘rain’ comes from an absent-minded gardener pointing his hose at the window. Kermit appears, backed by a heavenly choir – but in fact the voices come from a passing bus that’s carrying a church choir to its destination.
Segel and his co-writer Nicholas Stoller have fun with the characters, especially when Gary, Walter and Mary go looking for the Muppets, trying to organise a reunion. Fozzie the wisecracking bear is in Vegas, fronting a rip-off band called the Moopets; Miss Piggy is the “plus-size editor” at Vogue magazine (suggested title for her memoirs: ‘A Pig in Chic’); Scooter, hilariously, works for Google – one of the film’s occasional genius throwaways, like Tex reading in The Economist that the Muppets are getting back together. Speaking of which, Cooper (a great actor) does some excellent work as the super-villain, never attempting to ham it up; Tex doesn’t actually laugh maniacally, instead he turns to his henchmen and intones “Maniacal laugh. Maniacal laugh” – and Cooper’s doleful expression hits the mark every time. The likes of Steve Martin (who went way over-the-top in Looney Tunes: Back in Action some years ago) should bow their heads in shame.
The Muppets is almost completely delightful, the ‘almost’ having to do with its irony being slightly too self-conscious, its nostalgia slightly too undiscriminating. The gang get a robot assistant called ‘80s Robot’, but in fact its modem makes a dial-up noise – which of course comes from the 90s – and The Muppet Show was a late-70s thing in any case. (Who cares? It’s all retro.) There’s a rather superficial hankering for a more innocent time, contrasted with today’s (supposedly) hard-boiled kiddie culture – we glimpse a game-show called ‘Punch the Teacher’ – affectionately spoofed when our heroes talk about the story heading for “a heartbreaking last-minute triumph”. Then again, the sincerity is real enough to be touching and some of the spoofery is just inspired, like the Muppets “travelling by map” – i.e. doing that old-movie cliché where a line drawn on a map signifies our heroes’ progress – in order to cross the Atlantic in a matter of seconds.
It feels wrong to disparage The Muppets. Compared to something like The Smurfs, it’s a masterpiece. By any standard, this is smart, funny family entertainment. Maybe it’s just that The Muppet Show was so sophisticated, its humour so often dry and urbane, that I slightly resent it being milked by 80s kids who basically want to be 12 again. Yet the film does occasionally get the vibe exactly right, like the tiny moment at the climax – when the show is going well, and the audience is cheering, and the money’s piling up, and it looks like the theatre might be saved after all – when Kermit, retaining his amphibian sangfroid in the midst of pandemonium, muses to himself (in a voice that’s not quite Jim Henson’s, but close enough) that “It’s all going rather nicely”. That’s the frog we know and love.
DIRECTED BY James Bobin
STARRING Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper
US 2011 103 mins
