The Muppets (2011)

As someone who grew up watching the original trilogy of Muppet movies and The Muppet Christmas Carol, I have to admit to being just a little turned off by this film. It’s great that it brings the Muppets back into the public eye but I can’t help but find it ironic that a film called The Muppets relegates its titular characters to supporting roles. It’s still a pretty fun movie to watch but this stroll down memory lane reminds you that they just don’t make them like they used to.

Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) and Gary (Jason Segel) are two very different brothers. Gary is a normal human being, while Walter looks more like one of the Muppets the two used to watch on TV as kids. When Gary and Mary (Amy Adams), Gary’s girlfriend of 10 years, surprise Walter with an extra ticket for their trip to LA, Walter dreams of meeting the Muppets and being asked to join them in their antics. When Walter overhears an oil magnate’s plan to purchase the old Muppet Theater and destroy it to drill into a rich oil deposit beneath it, Walter convinces Gary and Mary to help him find the Muppets, bring them back together, and find a way to save the Muppet Theater.

We can disagree on whether Gary, Mary, and Walter are the main characters of The Muppets but there’s not much room to debate whether or not they are enjoyable characters. None of them have much of a personality and that bugs me. Gary and Walter are both big Muppet fans living quaint lives in the fictional Smalltown. They seem too wholesome to be real, almost like what the Muppets were played up to be like in The Muppet Movie. But that’s the problem- Muppets stand out from the real world; humans aren’t supposed to. As a Muppet, Walter isn’t even that unique. He just looks like a Muppet version of a kid. Maybe he’ll come into his own in future films. Mary is just as equally 50s-esque innocent as Gary but at least her character understands more about the way things work.

In the original Muppet trilogy, there is no consistency to the origins of the Muppets as an entertaining group, so you can’t really knock The Muppets for recycling the ‘get the gang back together’ plot from The Muppets Take Manhattan. This time around, however, the gang are all washed up has-beens who have moved on with life after stardom. Naturally, none of the Muppets show any sign of aging but it is fun to watch them shake of the rust and band together from all sorts of interesting places.

Once we actually get around to re-assembling the original troupe, this film does get better and is quite satisfying. The problem is that we grow impatient for our dose of nostalgia as the filmmakers make us wait through the wind-up. I can see why the filmmakers decided to create a new Muppet to bring about this grand reunion. The Muppets have fallen out of relevance over the last decade or two, so to deny that would be dishonest. I still think it takes too long to get to the point though.

I can’t tell if The Muppets was necessary. Sure, it reminds us that the Muppets are great family fun but it also calls to memory just how much better they were back in the day. It’s fresh enough to keep the kids interested and nostalgic enough to do the same for adults. It’s a safe, harmless movie but it’s also not likely to make the Muppets matter again for very long.

RATING: 3.25 out of 5

SECOND HELPINGS: Twilight (2008)

First and foremost, I want to apologize for the overlong rant that was my original review. Good Lord, what a mess! Much of my criticism still stands but I will try to make it a little more eloquent and far more concise. We’ll start with this: Twilight is a very flawed film. There are issues with just about every aspect, technical and artistic. The biggest problem, however, is that the popularity of the book takes all the surprise out of the movie, making this film boring.

When the young-adult novel this film is based on was breaking waves, nobody was describing it as a girl falling in love with a mysterious boy. No, they were describing it as a vampire romance, a Romeo & Juliet story with a vampire twist, or some other way that included the word ‘vampire.’ Even the marketing of the film spoiled the big reveal that the film spends an hour building toward. It ruins the suspense and leaves us with nothing to do but analyze the merits of the first hour. This is dangerous because there is plenty to gripe about if you’re not a Twihard (slang for Twilight die-hard, if it isn’t obvious).

More than enough has already been written about how poor the writing is for both the book and film but I have to comment briefly. The biggest problem I have with the writing in this film is that it presents a worldview where Bella’s wild teenage emotions are totally justified and presented as normal. I understand the importance of writing to your audience but you don’t need to validate poor decision-making. When your target audience consists of tweens and teens, I hold the author/screenwriters responsible for setting a few things straight to help readers/viewers to identify the mistakes of their heroine. There is none of that here.

Character development is another issue that plagues this film. By the end of the film, Bella knows herself and the world of vampires better but has her character actually grown? She is still the clumsy girl who makes bad decisions and can’t keep herself out of harm’s way. Edward certainly hasn’t changed either. He’s still the brooding, wannabe James Dean type. Now he just has a committed girlfriend to look after. It’s a good thing he never sleeps, because as accident-prone as Bella is, he’ll need to monitor her almost round the clock.

Chemistry between characters is hit or miss. Some of that is due to the writing, while some of it is also due some weak acting. Bella’s human friends think she’s super smart because she comes up clever ideas that work out great. Does any of this build up her confidence? Of course not. If it did, then she probably wouldn’t let Edward treat her like an object. Let’s be clear- he only grows to love her after he gets past his desire to drink her blood. There is no love at first sight- only intrigue from Bella and bloodlust from Edward. It’s a very messed up foundation for a relationship.

I think the biggest flaw of Twilight is that the filmmakers tried too hard to make up for the weak story without changing the story. Instead of making much needed improvements to the script, the studio embraces Twilight’s inherent mediocrity and runs with it. The end result is a mess of moody incidental music, spinning cameras, creepy glances, and a digitally-altered color palette that sucks a little too much color out of the world. Pile on top of this some really lousy visual effects and you have more than enough to make uninitiated folks like myself balk.

If you even out the pace of Twilight, you will end up with a better movie. Spend a little less time building up to the reveal that everyone already knows about and stretch out the cat-and-mouse game with the hunter vampire and this film may even become a taught thriller. Instead we have a whole lot of exposition and nothing happening for an hour and a half with a half hour of break-neck action at the end.

The filmmakers probably kept pretty close to the pace of the book to keep the Twihards of the world happy. Happy filmgoers generate repeat viewings and an instantaneous demand for an adaptation of the sequel novel. This is further evidence that the financial success of the book got in the way of making the film anything remotely close to an artistic success.

ORIGINAL RATING: 2.5 out of 5

NEW RATING: 2.5 out of 5

The Help* (2011)

This sassy, and at times catty, tale of black maids anonymously dishing the dirt on their wannabe Southern belle employers succeeds on a number of levels. It’s is simultaneously entertaining and thought-provoking. It also boasts snappy writing and terrific performances from the entire cast. The film may be a little heavy on the warm fuzzies but The Help is the kind of emotionally satisfying film you stop to watch when you come across it.

When Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone) returns home to Jackson, Mississippi from college with a degree but no husband, her local women’s circle try to take under their wing and find her a man. This is 1963 after all. Skeeter would rather focus on a career in writing, however, and lands a job for the local paper as a homemaking columnist. Not skilled in the subject herself, Skeeter seeks advice from Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), the black maid working for a member of the local women’s circle. This leads the young and idealistic Skeeter to compile a collection of stories from the perspective of Aibileen and her fellow maids. Published anonymously, the book creates a firestorm of controversy and intrigue but the project’s anonymity only lasts so long.

The characters and performances in this film are wonderful. Many characters could have been very cookie-cutter in nature but they aren’t. All of the black maids have personality. They are not all bitter towards their white employers, nor are they pushovers either. Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer give exhausting performances that showcase the emotional duality of working a job where you are treated as if you don’t exist half the time and less than a person the other half.

Bryce Dallas Howard is equally excellent as the scheming racist ringleader of the town’s young women. She could have been your stereotypical Southern belle who doesn’t understand the depths of her racism but she is so much more. Here is a power hungry woman bent on wielding whatever influence she has to keep those she finds inferior on a lower rung of the food chain. In today’s era, she would be a nightmarish politician.

Emma Stone’s character, though the facilitator of the whole thing, is actually the weakest in the entire story. She is very much your stereotypical young adult Baby Boomer full of idealism about social change and challenging the norm. Without the stellar mix of characters driving the story around her, The Help would descend into cliché. Had the story focused too much on Skeeter and put her up on a pedestal for her boldness in writing the book, audiences would have gagged. White liberals have trumpeted their work for minorities for decades so another dose of ‘see, we care!’ would have left everyone wanting more.

The Help does leave you wanting more though. It leaves you wanting more movies with acting as fabulous as you find here. This film shows that women in Hollywood do not have to settle for being a second-tier attraction. With the right story and the right talent, women can carry a film that matters and moves you. The Help does both. It may give in to a few too many heartwarming moments for its own good but we’ve almost come to expect that from movies about Baby Boomers and social justice. If you like great acting and uplifting stories, this one’s got them both in spades.

RATING: 3.75 out of 5