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It's Friday, which means that the weekend is officially here! With the weekend, comes the time to of course, let your hair down and have a little fun...maybe take in a movie?
Last week, Brian and I went and saw Muppets Most Wanted. We were both super excited about it, as we were celebrating out 11 year dating anniversary. (What what!) We'd been anxiously watching the previews and all the other press that had been done about the movie.
So...without any further delay...let's get to the review that I like to call A Salute To All Movies...But Mostly The Muppets.
Non-Spoilery
Let's start with the non-spoilery review first.
This is a great movie to take the kiddos to. It's got lots of fun, and mayhem, and jokes (both for the kiddos and for the adultos...yes...I just said adultos....).
For you Muppet fans, I think this is a little bit closer to the original Muppets movies. More about the Muppets overall, with the celebrity stars playing essentially more minor sort of roles.
This movie also had some fun songs, much like the last one. My favorite is the opening song. There's another fun song that stuck with me done by Sam Eagle and Ty Burrell's character that uses very creative lyrics to accomplish what they are trying to do. Overall though, I don't think the songs stuck out to me as much though...but the first movie's songs didn't really stick with me either. So, maybe that's just a me thing.
I think the premise of the story was a good one. It had intrigue and excitement. It felt overall, more Muppety.
I think that's my overall take away from this movie. It really seemed more Muppety than the last one. Which, when you're making a movie about the Muppets, that's a good thing to accomplish. The last movie seemed to focus too much (not necessarily in a bad way, mind you) about Gary, and Mary, and Walter. The Muppets actually seemed like the background characters. I feel that with this movie, they went back to the original formula.
This is a good movie that really I think the whole family will enjoy. It really does have something for everyone.
Ok...so for those of you who do not want spoilers, stop reading now. Because the next portion of this post will be FILLED with them.
I have given you fair warning.....
Spoilery
I thought this movie was good, but not great. It is certainly entertaining and fun, don't get me wrong, but I can see why people may not be connecting to it as much.
I think my problem is maybe there is too much Constantine. I think that's really been the problem of both of the last two movies. Relying too much on characters that are "new" Muppets. It has been kind of hard to connect. Now, I know that Constantine was the bad guy in the movie, so, you don't want to connect too much, but I just feel like when you let The Muppets be...together....as a group...they do better.
It was sort of my problem with The Muppets too. I love Jason Segal, but it was too much of him and Amy Adams, and Walter. The concept of just the Muppets is why Muppet-Vision 3D (especially the pre-show portion...less so with Waldo...and I think people's problem with Waldo) works. I believe that if they really did a Muppet movie based around the characters already in place (and not revolving around a marriage of Piggy and Kermy) I think it would actually be better. And it seems to be what's missing. The Muppets, have yet to be their traditional irreverent selves. I would have liked to have seen more silly. They had some...just not enough.
The story, I thought overall was good. I liked the caper story and did think it worked well with the Muppets. I thought Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, and Ty Burrell were great supporting characters. They didn't overshine the Muppets, but they each brought something unique and fun to their roles. I did have a bit of trouble understanding Tina Fey when she was singing with the accent, but that's ok. I did think that bit about Tina Fey being in love with Kermit to be a little bizarre. Actually, Tina Fey's character was probably my least favorite celebrity character of this movie...which is so hard to say because I'm usually a big fan of hers. And I loved her in the trailers.
Speaking of celebrities, I thought that the cameos were good too. Though, I have to say, sometimes I thought it was a little hard to realize who the cameos were. I think they maybe relied too much on the Disney Channel stars, who as someone who watches not one ounce of that channel missed over completely. But then again, I'm sure I missed some cameos in the previous Muppet movie because I didn't know who a certain celebrity was.
I think this movie is also missing the full-fledged heartfeltness that the last one had. I really didn't find myself connecting to any particular character. Even though I thought there was too much Walter in The Muppets, at least I connected with him and the story.
I did like the ending though. I thought it was traditional and in Muppet form.
I think that this is a solid family movie and I'm so glad to see that The Muppets are on the big screen once again. Is this the best movie I've seen all year? No, but it was certainly entertaining.
I hope that Disney realizes that people do want to see The Muppets in the limelight. I hope that they see that The Muppets are relevant still. And that they don't put them back in the can to sit for another 10+ years back into non-existence in our culture. (PS: it was also a terrible idea to have it pitted against Divergent...I know they probably didn't have a whole lot of say, but pitting any movie against the latest teen novel adaptation is always going to result in much lower numbers.)
So, what do you think? Did you see Muppets Most Wanted? Are you wanting to see it this weekend? Let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Facebook.
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