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

I Love You, Man (2009)

Every year, plenty of movies are made about relationships. These include chick flicks with no grasp on reality, hard-hitting Oscar-bait dramas and indie-flicks that nobody sees. Every now and again, someone manages to make a comedy containing poignant commentary on modern relationships. Incredibly vulgar but oddly endearing, I Love You, Man strives to be one of these rarities.

Real estate agent Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is newly engaged to the beautiful Zooey (Rashida Jones). There’s just one problem- Peter doesn’t have any strong male friends and no one in mind to be his best man for the wedding. Peter struggles through a few awkward ‘man dates’ but strikes gold when a quirky investor named Sydney (Jason Segel) shows up at one of his open houses. Sydney’s ‘tell it like it is’ attitude is both amusing and enlightening and Peter begins regularly hanging out with him.

Zooey is happy for Peter until he starts spending a little too much time with Sydney in his ‘man cave.’ After Sydney’s veiled attempt to convince Zooey that she need to perform fellatio on her man during an engagement party speech, Zooey’s opinion of the man sours. Several incidents later, Peter cuts ties with Sydney, fearing that their friendship is hurting his relationship with Zooey. Naturally, everyone comes to their senses and we get an amusingly awkward but happy ending.

Despite a seeming paint-by-numbers plot, I Love You, Man is different. In some ways, it’s a chick flick for guys (or maybe just a chick flick with guys in the lead instead of girls) with loads of foul language and boyish humor. It can’t quite break away from its formulaic feel but it is a very unique role reversal. Crassness aside, it does offer a candid look at male friendship. Men are stereotyped to have all kinds of ‘guy friends’ that they go do ‘guy stuff’ with. It’s nice to see a film debunk that myth.

While the script makes a few genuinely interesting remarks about male friendship and relationships in general, none of the commentary is very memorable. This means that I Love You, Man is not the second coming of When Harry Met Sally. Some fans of emotionally honest comedies may be disappointed by this but I doubt it was the filmmakers plan in the first place. It seems like this film was designed as a blend of When Harry Met Sally and The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Does this mean that the meat of the film is dumbed down with potty humor to attract male viewers? Perhaps. Then again, the non-raunchy components wouldn’t have made for a very satisfying film on their own and would have seemed like an uninspired attempt to modernize When Harry Met Sally. By taking the path that it did, the filmmakers succeeded in making a film worth seeing once and that can’t be a bad thing.

Perhaps the film is held back by its cast. There are no leading actors or actresses in this production. It’s tough to sell a movie composed of people best suited or at least most known for their supporting role work. Paul Rudd works as an average guy and Jason Segel works as Sydney but they fail to make their characters dynamic in any way. Sure, they hit their marks and drop their lines when they need to but there’s some misfiring when it comes to their comedic chemistry.

I Love You, Man is good for a few innocent and several not-so-innocent laughs. You will be able to remember the basic gist of the film but few if any scenes, lines or characters will stick with you for very long. You can see better but you can definitely see a lot worse than this.

RATING: 3 out of 5