Escape to the Movies: Muppets Most Wanted - Not Easy Being Green

CelestDaer

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I was initially interested in seeing Muppets when the trailer first hit way back when, but as I saw it more and more, the shine quickly faded, to the point that the last time I saw the trailer, I was actually having a negative reaction to it. Also, Bob? It's Walter, not Walt. And that was basically the first words out of my mouth when I saw the Peanut's teaser the other day...
 

Daria.Morgendorffer

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Nov 26, 2011
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You know what with the Peanuts trailer? You can assume it's not going to get screwed up, but here's the thing: the trailer actually caught the spirit of Peanuts, IMO.

You have Charlie Brown, who constantly gets upstaged by his comically pain-in-the-ass dog (if you don't think Snoopy was a pain-in-the-ass, you weren't paying attention), but that's okay, because Snoopy's still the boy's best friend (and I'm a HUGE dog person, so dogs-as-best-buddies is a trope that is hard to screw up with me).

I get how people may not like Peanuts, the same way people don't like, say The Prairie Home Companion or Norman Rockwell. It's not bitingly clever (like Calvin and Hobbes), the artwork and writing are simple and unchallenging, and its old-fashioned sensibility either works for you or doesn't. That's OK. It brought a smile to my face.

Topic? I hope if Bob is correct, this is the end of Disney trying to make Walter "happen". I've never seen a Muppet I've hated...like, at all, really.
 

irishda

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King Whurdler said:
Yeah, and the trade-off we got was totally worth it. Black on black leather that's barely distinguishable and makes them look more S&M light than bad-ass mutant heroes? Totally better.
Barely distinguishable at all, except for the completely different faces and powers and all. And it's not like the amazing action sequences helped make them look like bad-ass heroes either. No, because they all wore black leather, everything was ruined.

Look, the Green Goblin costume in the Sam Raimi directed films looks a bit goofy, but this looks like one of the Dam dolls in 'Nolan-Batman' armor; dark colors and a thousand little pieces. In other words, he's got a silly face, and a totally uninteresting suit, at least Willem Defoe stood out.
A clown would also stand out. Gaudy does not equal more interesting. Like "quirks" they're just intended to be cheap ways to make a character seem more interesting than they actually are. Judging a character based solely on their appearance is just sad, especially for a movie critic
 

Diddy_Mao

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Jan 14, 2009
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Just got back from a late showing.

At the end of the day I enjoyed Muppets: Most Wanted significantly more than its predecessor. (If nothing else, Most Wanted at least remembers that when we pay to see The Muppets we pay to see The Muppets, not the Jason Segel/Amy Adams musical review with occasional backup by a Muppet or two.)

While it's true that the plot isn't anything groundbreaking, the jokes hit more often than they miss, the songs are fun and the Muppets spend most of the film doing what the Muppets have always done best, lamp-shading popular culture and genre stereotypes in a way that manages to never come off as cynical or mean spirited.


Also, any movie willing to spend a few minutes of precious screen time on a well crafted Duck Soup homage is pretty much a win in my book.
 

Sejborg

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Jun 7, 2010
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I like Ricky Gervais but not enough to pay money to watch a muppet movie.

Also. That Green Goblin looks pretty bad ass. I like it. :)

Why are you always such a hater Bob?
 

MorganL4

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May 1, 2008
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Am I the only one that just wants a return to the TV show? I miss that show, it was awesome.
 

MahouSniper

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Diddy_Mao said:
Also, any movie willing to spend a few minutes of precious screen time on a well crafted Duck Soup homage is pretty much a win in my book.
I assume you're referring to the mirror joke, which I feel the need to tell you is much older than the Duck Soup performance. The first film I can think of having it is Floorwalker starring Charlie Chaplin, which came out in 1916. There's even a play from 1894 called My Friend From India which has a mirror routine in it. Though Groucho's performance is definitely one of my favorites.
 

SoulChaserJ

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I took my daughter to see this over the weekend and this was hard to watch. The singing stunk for the most part and it was hardly funny. They missed the mark WIDE with this one. Not every movie needs a sequel (they even sung a song about it) and while Jason Segel's reboot was surprisingly good, unsurprisingly this was not.
 

sporkaganza

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Apr 17, 2011
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I was surprised that Bob seemed to consider this one inferior to the reboot it's a sequel to. I just got back from seeing it and I honestly liked it quite a bit better than the first. I don't particularly find the whole "are the Muppets relevant" thing to be an issue. I don't think going to see a movie that's just an excuse for a bunch of fun musical numbers and gags is ever really irrelevant. Plus the songs were overall better than in the first movie, which had a couple standouts but mostly didn't work for me. This time around I felt like they were all hits, and they mined a lot of humor from the gulag setup and from Constantine pretending to be Kermit. I thought the whole thing worked beautifully.

I don't like Ricky Gervais or Tina Fey as people, but I was fine with their acting in the movie. I can see how Ricky Gervais might annoy the hell out of some people but he's well-used here and doesn't hog screen time, plus he's supposed to be kind of a smarmy jerkoff in the story.