“The Muppets,” is a generally charming exercise in nostalgia. The musical comedy whimsically and often cleverly revisits the characters, their shtick and and the TV show and movies that made them most famous.
* * * musical comedy
British TV director James Bobin, a veteran of the wonderfully dry musical comedy series “Flight of the Conchords,” and world’s biggest Muppet fan Jason Segel have concocted a wistful walk down memory lane that’s about, well, a walk down memory lane for The Muppets.
Times have changed. Character after character says in the film: “You’re relics.”
But they’re getting The Muppets back together for one last show, a telethon to save their tatty old theater and their old movie studio from a rapacious Texas oilman named Tex Richman, played without the requisite glee by Oscar winner Chris Cooper — “Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh.”
What’s cute here is the frame that Segel (who co-wrote the script) built for the movie. He plays Gary, who grew up with a Muppet brother. Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) never really fit in until the day when he saw his first “Muppets Show.” Here were his people.
Cut to their adult years, and Walter comes along with Gary and Gary’s longtime bestest gal Mary (Amy Adams, perfect) as they sing and dance their way to Hollywood for a visit to Muppet history.
That’s where they see how forgotten the puppets are.
Kermit’s almost a hermit, living in a fading mansion in Bel Air. Fozzie is fronting a tribute band, The Moopets, in Reno. And Miss Piggy is the plus-size editor at Paris Vogue with Emily (“The Devil Wears Prada”) Blunt.
Adult fans who grew up with the show will grin. But the giddiness that Jim Henson & Friends brought to the original Muppets is missing.
You have to wonder whether this generation of Muppet performers is little more than a tribute band itself.
PG, 2 hours. At area theatres.
