12-01-11 Movie Review:  The Muppets

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Especially for those of us who want to join in the holiday cheeriness but who get tired of jingle bells and tinsel, The Muppets is an ideal treat. Writer-star Jason Segel and director James Bobin have had more common sense than to try to update or otherwise “improve” the old fashioned treat that I wish Muppets creator Jim Henson could still be alive to see it.

Jason Segel has a Muppet brother, a fact that disturbs nobody in a world in which Muppets are accepted as just like other people, and brother Walter, Segel, and Segel’s fiancé Amy Adams set out to find Kermit the Frog and reassemble the old Muppet troupe to put on a show and raise ten million dollars to save the neglected and decaying Muppet studio from oilman Chris Cooper.

It’s fun to search out the old cast and find out what they are doing now, like Gonzo running a sewerage business under the motto “Gonzo’s Royal Flush”; it’s satisfying to see that Miss Piggy’s crush on Kermit is still operative; there are echoes of this movie and that; and there are more surprises than you might expect. The new Muppet, Segel’s brother, is fully up to the old standard, and could be developed into an equal to the great Kermit himself.

I was again amazed at what subtleties of characterization can be conveyed by felt figures, and there are brief touches of sentiment like Kermit’s song “Now They’re Only Pictures in My Head,” one of several bits about loneliness and loss. But the ending is a real joy and you’ll leave the theatre in a holiday glow. Don’t deprive yourself by missing The Muppets.

[Wichita showtimes]