The movie follows Walter (an obvious Muppet played by Peter Linz), a "different" kid who's been a long-time Muppets fan since his brother, Gary (played by Jason Segel), showed him a video of their classic show. Gary's taking his girlfriend, Mary (played by Amy Adams), to Los Angeles, and he decides to bring Walter along so he can tour the Muppets Studio. He finds out that a tycoon named Tex Richman (played by Chris Cooper) is planning on buying out the studio so he can tear it down and drill for oil. Walter locates Kermit the Frog and tells him everything, and he decides to get the gang back together and put on a show to raise $10 million to save the studio.
Much like a lot of the other Muppet movies, this movie takes a relatively cheap and goofy style that sends reality out the door and places itself more or less in a play theater, where everybody's dancing purely at random, and performances can be less reserved and more enthusiastic. Some might be thrown off by this relatively silly style, but I feel that it works perfectly. It's not bound to the grounds of reality. It exists in its own "Muppetsational" reality revolving around perfectly synchronized dance choreography, Muppets taking up just as much of the population as humans, and many, many random celebrity cameos.
Walter points out that the Muppets have always been capable of giving the world the 3rd greatest gift in the world: laughter, and for me, this movie delivers just that. The movie decides to play it safe for the kids (which is strange, considering that it was written by both the star and the director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall). It does this by using a lot of derivative jokes, like traveling by map, having everybody stand up on each other to look like a man, and too many fourth wall jokes to count. Regardless of that, the movie uses the charm of the characters and the structure of the plot to make such jokes feel fresh. What I mean by the latter is that it has good reasons for using those jokes. For example, the traveling by map joke is used to get the Muppets to Paris faster so they can get Miss Piggy, now editor of the Vogue. So, even the grown-ups should be able to get plenty of laughs out of this.
And, of course, the power of the Muppets would be incomplete without some energetic musical numbers. In recent years, musical numbers in films have been dying out, but Disney still wants to hold onto them. And to be fair, most of the songs in their films (and undoubtedly their most successful TV show these days) aren't half bad. Courtesy of Flight of the Conchords director James Bobin, the film's musical supervisor is Bret McKenzie, and he does not disappoint. The songs in this film are magnificent, by Muppets standards or otherwise. The bright and happy tunes and incredible dance choreography make it what I consider to be the best musical film since 2007's Hairspray.
There's no doubt about it, folks; I love The Muppets. It's a home run that overwhelms the nostalgic, provides plenty of laughs and toe-tapping songs for the newcomers, and reminds everyone that even those who have faded away in their fame can rise back to the top with the faith of one. Everyone involved cleary put plenty of effort and passion into bringing this glorious project to life. Definitely check it out. Even if the movie tanks at the box office, at least you'll have the courtesy to say that you saw the gang in their big finale.
This movie is worth $20 out of $20.
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