I had put off watching this for a long time. I didn't have specific fears about it, except that it might just not be remarkable. Luckily, it's actually pretty good. I certainly enjoyed it, and even felt a little more accepting of some of the more modern elements. If I had one complaint, it's that I have no idea how modern parents would feel about letting their kids see it.
Strangely, this movie seems to be aimed more firmly at the adult audience that grew up with the Muppets during the 80s. I'd be curious as to what a modern kid would think of it.
There's some odd humor in the movie that seems out of place. Notably, the farting shoes gag that showed up in trailers. Luckily, in the context of the movie, that joke plays much better. There's also a strange sequence of the chickens, led by Henrietta, clucking along with Cee Lo Green's Fuck You. While some people are more familiar with the edit of the song, Forget You, it seemed like a strange reference for the movie to make. Of course, I enjoyed that sequence quite a bit.
The writing was incredibly unusual. There's a lot of self-aware type humor, but they also don't seem to notice when their story mirrored the original movie (not all the time - in particular, the character arc for Kermit mirrors the original movie.)
The music is interesting. It's written by Bret McKenzie, and it fits his style very clearly. It's a pleasure to have his work on this project, since he's a bit more refreshing from the amount of time that the original movie put into the songs. I have some reservations about the use of popular music in the picture. There are sequences that use Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard, Gary Numan's Cars, Back in Black, Bad to the Bone, We Built This City, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Fuck You, and a few pieces of incidental music. Most of these I don't mind, but something feels wrong when the Muppets perform the songs. I suppose I'm wrong about this - I think they did this all the time during the Muppet Show.
No comments:
Post a Comment