Rewatched A Very Merry Muppet Christmas

[ryhoyarbie]

Thanks to someone who uploaded the entire movie on youtube, I rewatched "A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie" last week. I haven't seen the movie since it came out waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy back in 2002, so I decided to give the movie another spin.

I got to say this is a good muppet movie. It showed the muppets moving foward and trying to regain that magic they had lost in the 90's.

I enjoyed the plot of the movie, trying to raise enough money to buy the muppet theater from Joan Cusak's character Ms Bitterman. Also to add to the plot, Kermit wishes he wasn't even born, a la It's A Wonderful Life direction, and it did show how his friends would have faired if he wasn't around. Gonzo is homeless, Fozzie robs people, little Robin working at Club Dot, the muppet theater being a club, Piggy being some sort of fortune teller, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem not playing music, etc. I also enjoyed the song "Everyone Matters". I also enjoyed seeing the muppet theater again.

I also enjoyed the characters and what all they did in the movie: Scooter is the first to give up his pay check to help buy the theater. Fozzie and his speech talking about how Kermit has done so much for them and now it's time for them to give back, Lew Zealand showing up trying to get in the show with his fish act, Gonzo actually loving the act he wanted for the christmas show "Cirque Du So Lame", the Moulin Scrooge number, Pepe coming in at the end and making the theater an historical landmark, etc.

I know some people had a hard time with some of the darkness approach the movie took, especially with the Club Dot scene and seeing Scooter and Sam the eagle as cage dancers, but that didn't bother me. It added to the horror Kermit was experiencing in a world where he never lived in.

This movie did show the muppets moving in the right direction, before the Wizard Of Oz film and the average at best Letters To Santa.

3 out of four stars is my review, or a B+.

 

[minor muppetz]

I wonder if Rachiel Bitterman should have changed to become good at the end, as opposed to still being mean. Maybe she should have learned that the theater was valuable as well. It's funny how obnoxious and childish she acts towards the end when Pepe announces that he has good news for everybody except her... She sarcastically asks if the bad news is that they are out of nail polish.

 

[Drtooth]

I think the film works better if she didn't change at the end, myself. We've seen that old chestnut, the bad guy changing at the end of the Christmas Special... it really speaks more that she got so selfish she wound up not getting her way and storming out of the theater at the end. Really think she was the kind of character that should have been punished at the end.

I really do think this movie worked well, but it works better if you say to yourself it's a 90 minute TV special, not a movie. I still have a few problems with the film. Much as I love Scrubs, I never quite liked the cameo from the cast... seems that whoever wrote that scene didn't know what the show was about, and that really makes it seem forced. Unlike, of course, the Episode of Scrubs with the Sesame Street characters in it. Plus, I liked roughly half of the parodies, I liked the bit with the Grinch... but the Crock Hunter thing seems WAAAAAAYYY too at the moment for it to work, especially now.

 

[minor muppetz]

You know, it's amazing that the Muppets still got to keep their theater... Pepe made it a historical landmark, meaning that it could never be torn down or changed regardless of who owns it... But Bitterman still owned the place, and the Muppets still hadn't paid their rent on time... She could have kicked them out, and hired some new people to run it.