THE MUPPETS

*** (out of ****)

 

There are thousands of reasons that I’m not yet a real critic. One of them is that critics can’t afford the luxury of being fans of anything. If they love David Fincher, they have to walk into the newest Fincher movie with the same excitement that they do when they watch the newest entry in the Big Momma’s House epic saga. If they grew up watching Bewitched, they have to keep their fervor in check when the franchise is finally launched (where the hell is Bewitched 2, by the way?). And if there is a revival of the single greatest comedy act of all time, a timeless, ageless wonder who’s wit and skill with puns are unmatched by anybody else in the history of pop culture, they need to take a deep breath, keep an open mind, and just watch the movie, instead of declaring that it is what their entire lives have led up to, and if movies ceased to exist after this particular movie came out, everything would be totally fine. If they don’t, there’s only one of two things that can’t happen: either you love the movie, even though it’s bad, because you’re so brainwashed to the output of whatever your a fan of, or you are disappointed, regardless of how the movie turned out, because the movie never had a chance to live up to your expectations. Those are the only two options. There is no gray area.

 

This happened about five years ago, when The Simpsons Movie came out. Nobody hated it, but nobody really loved it, except for the critics. The critics thought it was great. The fans thought it was “meh”, as the yellow people say, because it wasn’t as funny as it should have been. Admittedly, there probably could have been more jokes. But the movie was good. It was actually good, and it seemed like a lot of time and energy went in to making it a good movie. If you want a shitty movie with a ton of jokes, I guess you’re going to have to wait for the Family Guy movie. I agreed with everyone else when it first came out, but upon second and third viewings (it’s among the last movies that attempted to become “Daytime Cable Classics”, a genre that will be gone very soon), it’s a good movie, and almost great.

 

The Simpsons Movie and The Muppets, on DVD and Blu Ray today, are very similar in many regards, besides the regard that they are fully responsible for my sense of humor. I saw The Muppets in theaters as soon as I possibly could. A part of me knew it would be perfection, another part was scared shitless that it would suck. It was decidedly…average. Just funny enough. Just engaging enough. But not exactly the evidence I was hoping would prove to a whole new generation that they had been missing out their entire lives. That wasn’t my review of the movie. That was my gut reaction after three years of build up, and has very little to with the actual quality of the movie. I failed to check my excitement at the door, and that meant the worst possible situation: I had to watch The Muppets again.

 

Some of my gut reactions were correct. No movie should ever feature Chris Cooper rapping. But other than that, I went through all of the same feelings I went through upon re-watching The Simpsons Movie. I wanted funnier, but instead I got a better movie than I ever deserved.

 

Remember Watchmen? Watchmen wasn’t a terrible movie, but it’s a good example of how to botch an adaptation, especially one that has such a fervent fan base. Zach Snyder buckled under the pressure of being the one responsible for bringing Watchmen to theaters, and one of his debilitating decisions was including everything he possibly could from the comics. This isn’t an adaptation. I could do that. You could come up to me and ask me to adapt Watchmen, and I could just hand you the trade paperback. The Muppets is on the other side of the spectrum. It doesn’t feel the need to fill every scene with explosions, characters, and winks to the audiences in an attempt to satisfy everyone, while fulfilling no one. With The Muppets we are given everything we need from the myth of the Muppets, even though your wishlist of characters and skits and jokes may not be totally checked off. I, for one, am a big Rowlf fan. He only gets one fucking line in this entire movie. Am I upset? No. I appreciate the great line, and keep watching, because in a movie like The Muppets, you never know what’s coming up next, regardless of what you expect.

 

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

***1/2 (out of ****)

All three PopFilter Podcast friends sit down and discuss Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I obviously liked it, but see if the other two either agreed with me or got it wrong.

 

https://popfilter.co/2012/03/popfilter-podcast-37/

 

 

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-Ryan Haley