The Muppets and Memory Lane

After far too long a wait, Marieta and I finally watched "The Muppets,"the new Muppet movie spearheaded by Boberg family favorite, Jason Segel. I was dying to see this film all of last year and then come Thanksgiving things kept getting in the way of getting to theater to see it. Probably the biggest deterrent to actually paying the $8-12 admission fee was my parents' one-word review; boring. While I could not believe it, it definitely gave me slight pause. Now after watching the film I can proudly say... they were kind of right. Before I get into why, how about a couple trailers?

Doesn't that look like a lot of fun? Energy and gags galore? Basically a Muppet version of the Blues Brothers movie? That sounds like a no-brainer barrel of laughs, and by all accounts it could have been... The facts are the film starts out slow and takes about 50 minutes to get up to speed. Also, to be completely honest, it lacked a lot of heart. How could a film with the Muppets, Jason Segel, Amy Adams, and music from Flight of the Conchord's Brett McKenzie not have heart? I'm not entirely sure but I think a lot of it might have been Jason Segel's influence. If you've got a guy who wrote a film, stars in it and executive produces the thing I kind of wonder if you go to him for a lot of most approvals and thumbs ups. I say that because he's a little stale and boring in the film and definitely could have used a little better direction. If the mastermind of a film is flat it would make sense the whole thing is flat.

Still the marketing for this film would have you believe this thing was gonna be fast and crazy fun. Like this parody trailer and OK Go video:

Those videos are awesome, and they're five or six other videos that are just as motivating to check this flick out. I will admit that the finale of the show is pretty fun but could have been so much better if the frontend of the film was built properly. There was just no energy and some of the gags seemed more planted than smoothly threaded.

Finally the music, I love Man or a Muppet. I have been singing that non stop sense I heard it before the Oscars. The rest of the songs were either complete tag-ons (Me Party) or never reach a complete crescendo (Life's a Happy Song). This falls pretty much on Mr. McKenzie. Fans of Flight of the Conchords know the music in the first season was amazing, Bret and Jemaine had been playing those songs for a while in their stand up routine and perfected them. The second season was all new material and most of the songs felt extremely rushed, like ideas that had not completely baked. I feel the same thing happened here; one gem in Man or Muppet, the rest completely forgettable.

The Muppets is overall a nice film and slightly heartwarming. The jokes do work a good deal of the time and the Muppets weren't hacky as they have been in the past. I would recommend it but give it some time to breathe before watching, this puppy had a fantastic amount of hype and delivers B- work. Sorry Jason, don't hate me.