The Muppets, dir. James Bobin

The gang’s all here.  Every last one of those familiar faces – like childhood stuffed animals pulled out of attic storage. This shouldn’t work. With all respect to Pixar (geniuses), their work has hung puppets up by their marionette strings. But Muppets don’t die. They just get re-stitched. Re-stuffed. “Reduce, re-use, recycle.” Except that here – on the digital projection screens of the 21^st century – it doesn’t feel recycled. Give credit to the people who got this thing together because it works. Not perfectly. But no Muppet production ever does. Chickens short circuit the stage lighting. One-hundred cases of Snakes in a Can turn out to be one-hundred cases of creamed herring. Something always goes wrong. And while the writers stick to the “let’s get the gang back together and raise a bunch of money to save the theater” formula, they do it with panache. Muppet panache:  in-jokes, absurd jokes, silliness. We need more silliness and god bless the Muppets for bringing it back. Who knows – maybe a new generation will get excited about felt. Maybe “google” will revert back to an apt description for sewn-on eyes. But even if it doesn’t, it’s nice to light the lights one more time.

 

-Jay Cullis

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4YhbpuGdwQ]