the muppets
Ladies, gentlemen, and all, I present to you the greatest movie and story ever told in the history of time.
Kidding aside, more people should try the whole “happiness, whimsy, and childlike wonder” thing I’ve heard so much about. The Muppets movie from 2011, or as I like to call it, “The Muppets: One Last Show”, was my Paddington before Paddington. I saw it when it came out as a child, and have seen it maybe three or four times since. This movie follows a simple, but deceptively satisfying “legacy sequel” format. It’s much more hopeful and purposeful than some other nostalgia-focused legacy sequels (though firmly in that camp), and it places a heavy emphasis on its characters, humor, tone and pop culture references.
I remember the musical and fourth-wall-breaking attributes to this movie, but I do not remember the sheer amount of references and celebrity cameos, undoubtedly due to them flying over my head at a young age. Jack Black, Kristen Schaal, Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Neil Patrick Harris, Whoopi Goldberg, Selena Gomez, Alan Arkin, Zack Galifinakis populate the screen for a quick finger point and head nod, on top of a cavalcade of references to days gone by. I don’t know why, but Kermit saying “may I please speak to President Carter” absolutely cracked me up. Between the meta references- “this is going to be a short movie”, “taking the map”, “expensive looking explosion” and more- and the ever-iconic “kidnapping Jack Black, Fozzie”, I caught myself smiling and even chuckling many times, even to jokes I remembered.
Both the song list and the instances of “breaking the fourth wall” were perfectly counted. Not too few to startle you with a reintroduction, and not too many to dry things up. Five new songs with only one reprise is the absolute perfect amount for a movie of this length (exactly the same as The Lion King, by the way). One of which, “Life’s A Happy Song”, is legitimately, no joke, one of my favorite movie original songs of all time, simply and purely because of how happy and joyful (and catchy) it is. It’s impossible to not smile during it, and the cheery demeanor is never challenged. It’s not cut short by an impossible choice for the characters to make, Walter and Gary never have a big fight that puts their friendship to the test. It seems like the filmmakers have a certain trust with the audience- trust that the joyful mood is genuine and that they’re having as much fun as the characters.
Speaking of characters, Amy Adams is, upon rewatch, my favorite performance in this movie. She absolutely cracks me up, and is an interesting character too. She’s the only character in the movie that has any real character development or depth, besides Kermit, Piggy and one of the villain’s henchmen, a decision that I also love. I like her coming back to the Muppet Studios to help out at the end, and additionally, I especially love that the characters don’t win at the end, because it really makes the familial aspects stick out more since you have to do a quick last-minute evaluation of their values. It’s a semi-unimportant novelty, but I definitely feel having the characters win for this particular story wouldn’t have had nearly as much of an impact.
Unfortunately, as much as it pains me to say this, it’s not Paddington. There’s some wonky CGI and some bad green screen effects that stick out like a sore thumb, especially since they’re not made fun of in a meta way like everything else is. The middle slowed pretty tremendously, and I nodded off for a tiny little while before everything picked back up again near the end. But I mean, come on. This film is so much fun. So. Much. Fun. Critiquing this is like making fun of a six year old’s drawing.
Maybe I should be more ashamed that I’m publicly admitting that I, a 22-year old adult, shed some manly eye sweat at the new rendition of the Rainbow Connection and Jason Segel’s Gary’s “You’re my hero” to his brother Walter, but if a movie made me forget, even for a split second, about how awful the horrors of the world are and how terrible being an adult can feel, and whisk me away to a happy place, I don’t think I have anything to be embarrassed about. Best movie ever.
