In a sentenceThe frog rides a bicycle, the bear drives, and half of Hollywood queues up to be out-acted by felt
In a Hollywood screening room, Kermit the Frog (Jim Henson) gathers the Muppets to watch the film of how they met. It begins in a swamp, where Kermit sits on a log with a banjo, singing about rainbows, until a lost talent agent, Bernie (Dom DeLuise), rows past and tells him Hollywood is auditioning frogs. Kermit sets off on a bicycle. At the El Sleezo Cafe he meets Fozzie Bear (Frank Oz), a comedian whose jokes are not going well, and the two head west in Fozzie’s Studebaker. Behind them comes Doc Hopper (Charles Durning), owner of a chain of French fried frog legs restaurants, who wants Kermit as his spokesfrog and will not take no for an answer, along with his uneasy assistant Max (Austin Pendleton).
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Jim Henson takes Kermit out of the swamp and onto the open road, and the film that follows is warm, ramshackle and often funny. The middle wanders and not every cameo lands, but the songs and the frog carry it.
Jim Henson’s first feature for the Muppets begins with the Muppets sitting down to watch it. Kermit the Frog herds the company into a Hollywood screening room, the lights go down, and what follows is the story of how they all met: a frog on a log, a talent agent lost in a rowboat, a bicycle, a bear, a long drive west. Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns wrote it and James Frawley directed it, and between them they take an act built for a stage and a curtain and put it under an open sky. It works. Not all of it, but the parts that work are as good as anything the Muppets have done.
The first ten minutes are the best. Isidore Mankofsky opens from the air, low over water and cypress, and settles on Kermit alone with a banjo, singing “Rainbow Connection”. Nothing about it should move a grown adult: a puppet, a swamp, a song about wishing. It moved us more than we were ready for. It is Henson’s voice, which has a crack in it and does not push; it is the lyric, about not knowing what you are looking for and setting off anyway; and it is the camera, which holds on the frog and trusts him. Then Dom DeLuise rows in as Bernie the Agent, hopelessly lost, mentions that Hollywood is auditioning frogs, and Kermit is off.
Off on a bicycle, pedalling down a country road with his knees going and nobody visibly attached. The film keeps making good on that shot: Kermit and Fozzie Bear singing “Movin’ Right Along” in the front of a Studebaker on a real road with real sun on the dashboard. Mankofsky shoots the puppets as he would actors, at their own eye level, in daylight, and you stop seeing felt within a minute. Joel Schiller’s El Sleezo Cafe, where Fozzie is dying on stage in front of the roughest crowd in the county, is a proper dive, and James Coburn runs it.
Frank Oz does the heavy lifting. His Fozzie is all hope and no material, the comedian who tells you the joke was funny after you have not laughed, and Oz plays the hurt under the hat without pathos. His Miss Piggy, met at a county fair, arrives with her own weather. Dave Goelz’s Gonzo turns up as a plumber with a chicken, and Jerry Nelson and Richard Hunt fill the edges.
Charles Durning’s Doc Hopper, a fried-frog-legs franchise king in a white suit, wants Kermit for his commercials and cannot understand why a frog would say no. Durning plays him straight, with a salesman’s smile that curdles, and the film needs one person who is not in on the joke. Austin Pendleton’s Max, his assistant, is in on it and wishes he were not, and his slow drift towards decency is the closest thing the script has to a second story. The cameos are a mixed bag. Mel Brooks, as a mad scientist with a brain-scrambling machine, plays a five-minute sketch at full volume and gets most of his laughs. Milton Berle sells used cars. Edgar Bergen sits on a judging panel with Charlie McCarthy on his knee, and the film pauses to let one generation of puppeteer nod to the next.
The middle wanders. Each stop is a Muppet, a song, a cameo, and back in the car, and Juhl and Burns give every stop the same size. Christopher Greenbury cuts briskly, but around the hour mark we knew exactly what the next scene would be and were right. Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher’s songs after the first two are pleasant and go past. The Hopper pursuit, which should tighten, mostly recurs, and a late stretch in the desert takes longer than it needs to.
One of the critics we read faults the film for throwing away the television format, and it is true there is no theatre, no curtain, no weekly guest star to be politely tormented. We think that was the point. On television the Muppets had a stage to hide behind; here they have a highway and weather, and the question of whether a frog can carry a feature is asked and answered. It runs 97 minutes and carries a U. Bring children if you have them. They are not required.
Most critics like The Muppet Movie, and the praise clusters around the same things: the humour, which plays to children and adults at once, and the musical numbers. Several reviewers single out the technical side, admiring James Frawley’s playful camera tricks and the quiet skill of the puppetry, which one review holds up as the reason the film works for viewers of different ages. The run of celebrity cameos is noted with affection rather than weariness, and the general verdict is of a good-natured, well-made musical comedy.
The spread is wide rather than narrow. Time Out is the lone dissenter, arguing that the film throws away the television show’s formula and that the aerial sequences drift without purpose. Slant Magazine, writing decades later, still rates it the strongest of the Muppet features, which suggests the affection has lasted. One review could not be assessed in full, so the picture is slightly incomplete.
Ebert gives the film a positive review, appreciating its humor and appeal to both children and adults. The Muppets’ performances and musical numbers stand out as a particular strength.
Read the full review →Errigo calls the film an entertaining adventure. She praises the charming proceedings and the many silly star cameos.
Read the full review →The review finds the film a well-crafted and entertaining musical-comedy fantasy. It praises James Frawley’s playful cinematic tricks and the Muppets’ visual antics.
Read the full review →Cole praises the film as the best Muppet feature, highlighting its inclusive, good-natured humor and technical inventiveness. He particularly singles out the balance of subtle puppet craft and welcoming comedy that makes it enjoyable for viewers of different ages.
Read the full review →The page was inaccessible, so the critic’s verdict cannot be determined. No specific praise or complaint is available from the supplied text.
Read the full review →The review is negative, faulting the film for abandoning the TV show’s successful formula. It also complains that the aerial sequences feel aimless.
Read the full review →
LabyrinthHenson’s puppets with the lights turned down; stranger, darker, and just as handmade.
The Muppet Christmas Carol · not on Fi1m yetThe company’s other great outing, with Dickens played straight and Gonzo narrating.
Paddington 2A polite bear, a clear villain and a city; the same decency, better plotted.
BabeAn animal who wants a job he was not born to; gentler, and it earns its tears.
Kiki's Delivery ServiceAnother small hopeful leaves home for the city and finds out what she is for.
