Commence Short review: It’s cheesy, it’s campy, it’s grown men playing with dolls and puppets, and it’s totally awesome! It’s so good to see these guys back in the theaters.

What’s in it?
Slapstick humor, inter-species smooching, manamana, very expensive looking explosions (off screen), white guy rapping, kidnapping (but its just Jack Black, so its ok), gratuitous “getting the gang back together” plot, graphic and aberrant wholesome entertainment.

Directed by:
James Bobin
This seems to be his first movie, but he has directed the Ali G show and Flight of the Concords, so he’s no new comer to sarcastic and silly humor.  But the real reason this movie was brought together is Jason Segel. He is in it, but also has a writing credit on this movie as well. You know him from How I met your mother and Forgetting Sarah.

The new Muppets movie is a come back movie that’s getting the group back together. Think Blues Brothers, only with less car chases and less Nazi’s.

This movie is very self aware, the Muppets know they’ve done a movie before where they were trying to find the gang (the first movie). And they know they’ve been gone a long time, and know they might be not as relevant now because people might not be looking for good wholesome entertainment anymore, that kids might want shows more like Jackass, Jersey Shore, Beavis and Butthead (hey, they’re back too!), and Punch your Teacher (not a real show...yet).

As with any story, there needs to be a reason to get the gang back together, conflict and a villain. In this story, a greedy rich guy (played by Chris Cooper) wants to bulldoze the old Muppets set in order to drill for oil. The Muppets have until a certain date in order to raise several million dollars in order to buy it back from him to save the set, and their names. If they don’t, not only does he get to drill for oil on their land and wipe out their old set, but he also gets to have the rights to their names and use it for his own evil ends. (side note, another, very large and rich company has ALREADY bought the Muppets name...Disney).

I won’t say this movie is perfect, it’s not. There are other movies directed towards kids that have better stories and hit the mark better, namely Iron Giant, Toy Story 3 and Incredibles. However...none of them are the muppets!  All your favorite muppets are back, doing all their old jokes...and for some reason, it didn’t get old.

I saw this in the theater, and although I am just a kid at heart, it was so awesome to see these guys on the big screen, watching it with a ton of other people laughing together, hearing little kids giggle at the old jokes I grew up with. This is a nostalgia movie for those of us who grew up with them, but its also re-introducing them for the younger generation. I really hope they make more of these. We could use more movies like this.