DVD INTERVIEW: THE MUPPETS...

The Muppets (U)

Released by: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

Released onto DVD on 11th June 2012
Priced: £10.00 or less

JOHN MOSBY MEETS THE MUPPETS...


There’s a certain buzz in the air at the May Fair Hotel in London – there are some very special guests on the premises. Well, there’s at least one. Kermit is here, eager to talk about the new muppets movie (handily entitled, The Muppets), but his on-screen partner (and, perhaps ,off-screen too – but let’s not gossip) is apparently off doing research/shopping. The world’s most famous frog insists she’ll be along shortly.

Despite being away from the screen for a long time, there’s no denying the muppets have a multi-generational appeal.  Kermit speaks to the fact that while he enjoys the rising trend in 3D, CGI outings, he still prides himself in coming from an era where things were real. Maybe that’s why they’ve taken their time, making us miss them.

“We’ve never been interested in becoming background guys who are turned into CGI. We’ve always wanted to be real in a real world.  Let me give you an example… if you were talking to me and I was Woody from Toy Story… THIS would be your interview...” he says, ducking under table leaving an empty space to look at. “I think it’s probably a lot to do with staying true to who we are, but yet we try to evolve with the times.  If we knew the answer to that, we’d have been back before twelve years!”

He admits that with the success of the original Muppet Show, his famous eMCee-duties and leader of the disparate gang of plush-skinned punchliners, fame has been a double-edged lily-pad and that he may have been pigeon-holed (frog-holed?) by the industry. Is that frustrating?

“Well, frankly, a little bit,” he shrugs. “I’ve tried out for a couple of other roles over the years that I didn’t get.  There was Yoda. Right body-type, wrong ears. There was The Incredible Hulk… right colour, wrong body-type. It’s tough.”

“Oh, yeah… WE’RE sooooo dangerous! No, it’s a funny thing. (Fox News) were concerned about us having some kind of prejudice against oil companies?? I can tell you that’s categorically NOT true.  Besides, if we had a problem with oil companies , why would we spend the entire film driving around in a gas-guzzling Rolls Royce?”

At this point, Miss Piggy enters, enjoying the fashionably-late diva-status that has endured for decades and admits her secret is that she simply decided to stop ageing... and voila.  “I love the screen legends,” she gushes. “ Garbo, Munroe, Dietrich. I feel that I am continuing that legacy…”

The new film is arguably one of the muppets’ best. It manages to be sweet without been sickly, positive without being banal. It’s like a spoonful of your favourite desert, invoking the best memories of better times, but feeling timeless rather than dated.  The story sees the characters scattered to the wind, the heydays of their variety acts now long gone (unless you count Fozzie’s tribute band The Moopets). When uber-fan Walter  overhears that the plan to buy the old theatre/studios and turn them into a Muppet Museum is actually a front for Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to get his hands on an underground lake of oil far beneath the premises, Walter decides to track down his heroes and get them to exploit a loophole – if they can raise $10 million, they can stop the sale. Walter’s flesh-and-blood brother  Gary (How I Met Your Mother’s Jason Siegel – who also co-wrote the film) and Gary’s very patient girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) are there to help-  though Gary, Walter and Mary also need to make some serious decision about what they want out of life as well...

Yes, everyone loves the movie. Well, perhaps not everyone. Fox News’ Eric Bolling declared that it was part of a dangerous  liberal-agenda that is brainwashing children against capitalism. After all, he pointed out, the villain of the piece is a rich oil baron with a maniacal laugh.

Kermit can barely stop his ping-pong eyes from rolling...

“Oh, yeah… WE’RE sooooo dangerous! No, it’s a funny thing. They were concerned about us having some kind of prejudice against oil companies?? I can tell you that’s categorically NOT true.  Besides, if we had a problem with oil companies , why would we spend the entire film driving around in a gas-guzzling Rolls Royce.?”

“It’s laughable. It’s as laughable as accusing Fox News of being… news,” Miss Piggy agrees.

“Boy, that’s gonna be ALL over the internet...” Kermit acknowledges.

For the moment, though, they’re just happy to be back on the entertainment radar. One of the key songs from the film ‘Man or Muppet’ was nominated for an 'Oscar'. There was even talk, when Eddie Murphy pulled out, of the muppets taking up the presenting reins at the Academy Awards in February. Instead they went with Billy Crystal. The muppets weren't perturbed.. Well, perhaps La Pig was a little miffed...

“ I don’t know. I just doesn’t feel right being part of an institution that continues to ignore the contributions of pigs and frogs! For some reason the Academy  does not recognise any other species than humans as being actors… as ARTISTES… as talent!” Miss Piggy tosses back her golden locks.

Fortunately the rest of us do. The Muppets franchise continues and it would take the most hard-hearted person to deny that it’s great to see them back. This latest film is simply superb entertainment for all ages and its cast as entertaining as ever.  The cast are clearly glad to be there, with Siegel, Adams, Cooper et al perfectly cast and exceptionally fun – not to mention the obligatory array of cameos that pop up throughout.

It may not be easy being green, but it’s worth it.

5/5

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FILM REVIEW: MEN IN BLACK III

MEN IN BLACK III (15)

Starring: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Emma Thompson

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Running time: 106 minutes

Released 16th May 2012

Released by: Sony Pictures

The original Men in Black, released in 1997, was a fairly riotous romp that was in turns, clever, funny and full of action. Adapted from the comic of the same name, director Barry Sonnenfeld took the general conceit of aliens amongst us and gave us a tongue-in-cheek look at the shadowy agency and monochrome men that kept the planet safe. It was rightly a big hit and a sequel was inevitable. Sadly, the 2002 sequel was a misfire, not offensively bad but seemingly hugely opportunistic - the thrill of the first replaced by some tired repetition and dodgy casting (Lara Flynn Boyle as a villainous alien in a supermodel's body simply couldn't carry a joke or threat in the same way that the original's Vincent D'Onofrio managed with ease).  The VFX remained fun, but the story was flimsy with many a joke repeated and falling flat.

A full decade on and we have the third chapter - one which seemed unlikely after the disappointment of number two and the passing of the years. Kay (Jones) and Jay (Smith) are still the odd couple, their relationship remaining static and stoic. As always they'd die for each other but find it easier to do that than have a decent conversation. In short, the years have had little noticeable development (which is, in itself both unlikely and frustrating from a narrative point of view). The only real difference is that Zed (Rip Torn) is now gone and his replacement is the no-nonsense 'O', played by Emma Thompson.  An alien warrior named Boris the Animal (The Flight of the Conchords'  Jemaine Clement) escapes a prison on the moon and decides to wreak revenge on the MIB who took his arm and freedom: Kay.  However he's not just going to kill him, he's going to to erase him from history by travelling back in time and getting his own life back. Apparently succeeding in the plan, Jay must now travel back to 1969 and the days before the moon-launch to get history back on course. But to do so, he's going to require a lot of luck and the help of a younger sixties-era Kay (Josh Brolin). Chaos, of course, is inevitable.

Perhaps the problem with Men in Black III is that everyone clearly appears to be busy channelling someone else. Much is being made, quite rightly, of Josh Brolin channelling a younger Tommy Lee Jones. As a tribute to the familiar Jones persona - the original remaining at the craggy book-ends of the feature - it's both hugely enjoyable and uncanny in execution, the voice, mannerisms and general demanour expertly presented but with Brolin's own persona bubbling just under the surface. Jemaine Clement is hidden beneath several layers of prosthetics for the maniacally evil (though not particularly smart) Boris the Animal, but it's only IMDB and the end credits that will convince you it's not Tim Curry strutting his stuff. Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire) is Griffin, a quirky alien able to understand the different multiverse outcomes of every action and, whether intentional or not, is very reminiscent of a Mork-and-Mindy era Robin Williams, complete with wide-eyed wonder and touch of detached melancholy.   Even Smith seems to be getting in touch with the character he last played almost a decade ago, as if not time had passed.

Time-travel stories almost defy you to look at them technically and dissect their logic, but even with that understanding, there are some very convenient and obvious holes in the plot - especially one practical obstacle that makes as little sense as it did in the most recent Transformers outing. Much fun is had with the concept of the story happening in the past, but equally there are some wholesale opportunities missed. There's the regulation jokes about attitude to skin-colour and a meeting with Andy Warhol, but the '60s are all too often reduced to a soft-focus backdrop for the production designers rather than a canvas on which to mischeviously scrawl.  The VFX are as good as ever, but even in 3D are nothing to particularly phone home about. Even the sight-gags of possible aliens amongst us, remain predictable - screens glimpsed in the background include Lady Gaga and Howard Stern. Really? Whodathunkit? (Probably everyone).

Smith is able to carry the scenes he's in, but none are required to stretch the now familiar MIB routine. Tommy Lee Jones collects a paycheck but delivers no real empathy in an underwritten arc - the visage now looking more starched and botox'd than pleasantly weathered. He's supposed to be the heart of the film, but  seems more like its aching appendix doing what the script demands with one eye on the clock. Ultimately the film is amiably safe rather than wholsale entertaining. It's an improvement on the previous sequel, but only in that it plays to those familiar strengths and an unapologetic sense of nostalgia that it never quite earns. As we near the end, we get through an FX-dominated set-piece and to what is meant to be a deeply emotional revelatory climax - see if you spot what's coming - but it just doesn't work: the film simply doesn't earn it, containing no real emotional extremes in any direction. There are smirks instead of guffaws, furrowed brows rather than tears, one-liners instead of conversations. It's all more Meh in Black... a decade late to the party and forgetting to bring a bottle.

Somewhere deep inside, like a benovolent alien parasite, something interesting is desperate to get out of the script, but if so, it's on the cutting room floor.  Otherwise it's a pedestrian, average, shrug of a film, smothered in bright but aging candy-floss and easy laughs.  It's the anti-Prometheus and  while it will probably do well on DVD, it won't be acheiving any noticeable lift-off in a competetive summer box-office, even if it did momentarily knock Avengers from the top spot...

3/5

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