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Ruahnna
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Just got back from a late-night showing after 12 hours of teaching and here I am....
I have lots to say, and I'm not sure what order things are going to come out in, but here goes.
SPOILERS * SPOILERS *
Let me say--as gently as possible, and right up front--that they would have had a better movie if they had had a better story. What I loved in this movie were the moments--the little moments between characters--but there was not really an over-arching story idea that tied everything neatly together. At the end, they took a page from KSY and made everything okay with a scape-graced apology--but at least SOMEBODY finally said something nice to Kermit. Let me do things I liked first--that will be better.
Kermit and Piggy have a very very realistic Kermit and Piggy fight at first, so bravo to that. And Kermit feels bad about it, and apologizes. True, Piggy doesn't hear him, but we do. Do you have any idea how RARE it is when the amphibian apologizes for being a jerk? Pretty rare. So he gets points for recognizing right away and feeling bad afterward. After all, he JUST got her to agree to stay and not go back home to Paris. (Speaking of...did anyone else wonder why Piggy wasn't ho-hum about being back in Europe?)
Walk near the deserted street near the canal? Kermit isn't really this dumb.
I think I thought--from the previews--that Constantine changing places with Kermit was supposed to be an opportunistic sort of maneuver. "Oh, look! I'm being chased by the police and here in front of me in a lookalike--what are the odds!" IMNTOBHO, that would have been more believable than what we got.
It pained me a great deal that nobody actually noticed that Kermit was gone. Much has been made over the fact that Kermit is the one who kept the Muppets together, and Piggy is the one who kept Kermit together but they seemed to have forgotten this. This also paints all of Kermit's friends and cast and crew members as amazingly self-absorbed and selfish. Didn't they all work their tails off to come when he needed them in the last movie? How can you love someone if you don't know them?
Which segues nicely into the whole Constantine woos Piggy stuff. He was both too aggressive and too uninterested, in turns. He vacillates between being too mean and being too slobbery and slimy/sexy. I don't see Piggy falling for it, no matter how much she wanted to get married. One of the funniest moments for me was when Kermit enlists the help of ALL the Muppets to get the ring off Piggy's finger. There was a cruel irony in that, to be sure.
Scooter's role as right-hand-man to Kermit was usurped by Walter. It would have been more effective for Walter to have gone to the muppets who knew Kermit better and say, "Gosh, guys--I know I don't really know Kermit that well yet, but he always seemed so nice and, um, tightly wound. Have any of YOU noticed that he's, um, very apathetic about the show--verbally as well as action-wise?" Then they could have described what Kermit is REALLY like and realized--all together now--that Kermit had been replaced.
I don't like Tina Fey. At all. In anything. I hoped this would be the exception, but it is not. Ty Burrell, on the other hand, is absolutely AWESOME. Sam looked particularly wonderful, too--plushy and fluffy and handsome.
Piggy's clothes were fab, but what on earth happened to her hair. Can you SERIOUSLY see Piggy getting married with dish-water blond hair? Her hair was bad in every scene except the scenes where she wore it down in platinum blond curls. The rest looked like mail-order wigs. Sorry, Piggy--fire your hairdresser. You do not--under any circumstances--need hair that restrained. You need wild riots of curls that vibrate with passion when you are angry.
Kermit adapting to the gulag was believable, even if him being there was not. Him making all the funny escapes was goods. The hole behind the Miss Piggy poster--for those of you who don't know--is a nod to "Rita Moreno and the Shawshank Redemption," the Steven King novella upon which "The Shawshank Redemption" was based. The poster of her was wonderful, and Kermit's sadness at thinking that she, too, had forgotten about him was very moving.
I wasn't wild about the idea that the Muppets only care about their own personal artistic freedom--The Muppet Show has always been a group effort.
Kermit was very warm with the prisoners who were trying to be in the show. Ironically, the REAL Kermit usually isn't that nice. On TMS, Kermit could be incredibly snarky, and he had no trouble nixing acts he thought were terrible--be they Piggy's, Scooter's, Fozzie's, Animal's or Lew's. While it was funny to have Kermit say, "If any of you have a problem with that, well--my door is always open!" Actually, Kermit would have told them all to shape up and audition. Also, about the "my door is always open" line....Um...no it's not. You're in prison, Sweet Pea.
Ty and Sam were awesome. A great comedic duo. The comments about the talent and brain power of the other performers were pretty much dead-on.
To me, one of the funniest lines in the movie was Constantine's "The bear, the leetle girl and the dog have run away" (meaning Fozzie, Walter and Animal) was one of the funniest things in the movie. I giggled like a mad fiend.
Bobo and Deadly arguing was great. Foo Foo's return was very welcome! (Although I wanted her to bite Kermit. That could have been a great subplot, that Foo Foo kept biting Constantine, and he was forced to go along with it an laugh it off.
Like Slackbot, I, too, wondered why Piggy didn't kick Celine Dion out of HER song--at one point, there are TWO of Celine singing. Why? Why, exactly? Piggy's introspection was good, but perhaps too little, too late.
Kermit realizing Piggy is in danger--not just physical danger, but in danger romantically--was a good catalyst for action.
Um...the escape scene. Maybe Kermit could get out of the prison the same way Walter and Fozzie and Animal did. THEY came into the prison unnoticed, and left the prison unnoticed--THAT would have worked.
I wanted Kermit to spoil the wedding. Well, I WANTED Kermit to turn into an arm-waving, frog-testosterone-producing jealous fiend who demanded Piggy come back to him and tell Constantine to take a hike. He is is usually diffident self. And poor Piggy--even the man (er, frog) who wants to marry her can't just think "Hubba hubba." Even to Constantine, Piggy is a nuisance. What a shame, since she is an incredible, lovely, wonderful pig who would be fantastic to grow old with--right? RIGHT? THAT sequence was truly lovey--especially the bags under Kermit's eyes as he ages. For that scene alone, I like this movie.
And yes, I did enjoy it.
Kermit charging to Piggy's rescue was lovely. He was very heroic. And, after he had stormed the helicopter, to get to see his pig thrash Constantine...priceless. It was nice to see Constantine finally (FINALLY) acknowledge how wonderful she was...yeah. That.
The kiss Kermit and Piggy shared then--Kermit kissing Piggy--was worth the price of admission alone. It wasn't what I wanted, but it wasn't bad.
If they had worked on having a good story first, then the whole thing would have been better. As it was, it was an enjoyable romp.
Hope I've not spoiled any of the fun for any one--I tried really hard to be both honest and fair.
I have lots to say, and I'm not sure what order things are going to come out in, but here goes.
SPOILERS * SPOILERS *
Let me say--as gently as possible, and right up front--that they would have had a better movie if they had had a better story. What I loved in this movie were the moments--the little moments between characters--but there was not really an over-arching story idea that tied everything neatly together. At the end, they took a page from KSY and made everything okay with a scape-graced apology--but at least SOMEBODY finally said something nice to Kermit. Let me do things I liked first--that will be better.
Kermit and Piggy have a very very realistic Kermit and Piggy fight at first, so bravo to that. And Kermit feels bad about it, and apologizes. True, Piggy doesn't hear him, but we do. Do you have any idea how RARE it is when the amphibian apologizes for being a jerk? Pretty rare. So he gets points for recognizing right away and feeling bad afterward. After all, he JUST got her to agree to stay and not go back home to Paris. (Speaking of...did anyone else wonder why Piggy wasn't ho-hum about being back in Europe?)
Walk near the deserted street near the canal? Kermit isn't really this dumb.
I think I thought--from the previews--that Constantine changing places with Kermit was supposed to be an opportunistic sort of maneuver. "Oh, look! I'm being chased by the police and here in front of me in a lookalike--what are the odds!" IMNTOBHO, that would have been more believable than what we got.
It pained me a great deal that nobody actually noticed that Kermit was gone. Much has been made over the fact that Kermit is the one who kept the Muppets together, and Piggy is the one who kept Kermit together but they seemed to have forgotten this. This also paints all of Kermit's friends and cast and crew members as amazingly self-absorbed and selfish. Didn't they all work their tails off to come when he needed them in the last movie? How can you love someone if you don't know them?
Which segues nicely into the whole Constantine woos Piggy stuff. He was both too aggressive and too uninterested, in turns. He vacillates between being too mean and being too slobbery and slimy/sexy. I don't see Piggy falling for it, no matter how much she wanted to get married. One of the funniest moments for me was when Kermit enlists the help of ALL the Muppets to get the ring off Piggy's finger. There was a cruel irony in that, to be sure.
Scooter's role as right-hand-man to Kermit was usurped by Walter. It would have been more effective for Walter to have gone to the muppets who knew Kermit better and say, "Gosh, guys--I know I don't really know Kermit that well yet, but he always seemed so nice and, um, tightly wound. Have any of YOU noticed that he's, um, very apathetic about the show--verbally as well as action-wise?" Then they could have described what Kermit is REALLY like and realized--all together now--that Kermit had been replaced.
I don't like Tina Fey. At all. In anything. I hoped this would be the exception, but it is not. Ty Burrell, on the other hand, is absolutely AWESOME. Sam looked particularly wonderful, too--plushy and fluffy and handsome.
Piggy's clothes were fab, but what on earth happened to her hair. Can you SERIOUSLY see Piggy getting married with dish-water blond hair? Her hair was bad in every scene except the scenes where she wore it down in platinum blond curls. The rest looked like mail-order wigs. Sorry, Piggy--fire your hairdresser. You do not--under any circumstances--need hair that restrained. You need wild riots of curls that vibrate with passion when you are angry.
Kermit adapting to the gulag was believable, even if him being there was not. Him making all the funny escapes was goods. The hole behind the Miss Piggy poster--for those of you who don't know--is a nod to "Rita Moreno and the Shawshank Redemption," the Steven King novella upon which "The Shawshank Redemption" was based. The poster of her was wonderful, and Kermit's sadness at thinking that she, too, had forgotten about him was very moving.
I wasn't wild about the idea that the Muppets only care about their own personal artistic freedom--The Muppet Show has always been a group effort.
Kermit was very warm with the prisoners who were trying to be in the show. Ironically, the REAL Kermit usually isn't that nice. On TMS, Kermit could be incredibly snarky, and he had no trouble nixing acts he thought were terrible--be they Piggy's, Scooter's, Fozzie's, Animal's or Lew's. While it was funny to have Kermit say, "If any of you have a problem with that, well--my door is always open!" Actually, Kermit would have told them all to shape up and audition. Also, about the "my door is always open" line....Um...no it's not. You're in prison, Sweet Pea.
Ty and Sam were awesome. A great comedic duo. The comments about the talent and brain power of the other performers were pretty much dead-on.
To me, one of the funniest lines in the movie was Constantine's "The bear, the leetle girl and the dog have run away" (meaning Fozzie, Walter and Animal) was one of the funniest things in the movie. I giggled like a mad fiend.
Bobo and Deadly arguing was great. Foo Foo's return was very welcome! (Although I wanted her to bite Kermit. That could have been a great subplot, that Foo Foo kept biting Constantine, and he was forced to go along with it an laugh it off.
Like Slackbot, I, too, wondered why Piggy didn't kick Celine Dion out of HER song--at one point, there are TWO of Celine singing. Why? Why, exactly? Piggy's introspection was good, but perhaps too little, too late.
Kermit realizing Piggy is in danger--not just physical danger, but in danger romantically--was a good catalyst for action.
Um...the escape scene. Maybe Kermit could get out of the prison the same way Walter and Fozzie and Animal did. THEY came into the prison unnoticed, and left the prison unnoticed--THAT would have worked.
I wanted Kermit to spoil the wedding. Well, I WANTED Kermit to turn into an arm-waving, frog-testosterone-producing jealous fiend who demanded Piggy come back to him and tell Constantine to take a hike. He is is usually diffident self. And poor Piggy--even the man (er, frog) who wants to marry her can't just think "Hubba hubba." Even to Constantine, Piggy is a nuisance. What a shame, since she is an incredible, lovely, wonderful pig who would be fantastic to grow old with--right? RIGHT? THAT sequence was truly lovey--especially the bags under Kermit's eyes as he ages. For that scene alone, I like this movie.
And yes, I did enjoy it.
Kermit charging to Piggy's rescue was lovely. He was very heroic. And, after he had stormed the helicopter, to get to see his pig thrash Constantine...priceless. It was nice to see Constantine finally (FINALLY) acknowledge how wonderful she was...yeah. That.
The kiss Kermit and Piggy shared then--Kermit kissing Piggy--was worth the price of admission alone. It wasn't what I wanted, but it wasn't bad.
If they had worked on having a good story first, then the whole thing would have been better. As it was, it was an enjoyable romp.
Hope I've not spoiled any of the fun for any one--I tried really hard to be both honest and fair.
I guess I liked going along with the silliness of it for the sake of plot development. I laughed pretty hard at Dominic Badguy's suggestion, honestly. To be fair and critical, the plot was absolutely thin, but that added to the malleability and fun of the film IMO. The previous film was a bit too sentimental for my liking so I am glad they dodged that in this one, even if they overshot.
