Movie review: The Muppets ****

Stars: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper
Director: James Bobin
Rated: PG
Showing: Neptune Cinema week of Friday, December 2. For more information call 292-7296.
Tickets: Buy tickets online
Runtime: 98 minutes
Comedy/family

The Muppets made me feel warm and Fozzie. Not from nostalgia, but in appreciation of an energetic, affectionate ticklefest.

This reboot captures the creativity and talent of the best Muppet extravaganzas, sidestepping the slack plots and guest-star overload (Dabney Coleman! Linda Lavin! Ed Koch!) of the worst. It proves there's a place for Kermit and Miss Piggy in a world of computer-generated kiddie movies.

The film inhabits that breezy Crayola-colored movieland where characters break into song to explain their feelings, extras dressed like milkmen, cops and librarians perform perfect chorus line kicks, and travelling to France is as simple as plotting a red line on a map.

Jason Segel stars as Gary, who has grown to adulthood in this apple pie world. His felt-and-foam brother Walter has remained approximately 3 feet tall and 10 years old. No, I can't explain that. Go ask your mother.

Gary is determined to make Walter's lifelong dream come true with a tour of the fabulous Muppet Studios in Hollywood. Gary brings along his fiancee Mary (Amy Adams) to celebrate their anniversary, because she'd enjoy that, right?

They find the studio a cobwebbed shambles, visited only by rare hardcore fans and lost Chinese tourists, with a morose Alan Arkin the tour guide. Walter learns of a plan to raze the dream factory for oil drilling. With the old Muppet team disbanded, how can they raise the $10 million needed to rescue the studio? If only there was some way to reunite the old troupe and put on a telethon!

One of the satisfactions of the well-structured screenplay (written by Segel, who clearly adores every last critter down to Pepe the Prawn) is the way surreal nonsense and clever character humour coexist.

Gonzo, Animal and the rest have all drifted off to lives that fit their personalities, and must be hauled out of their doldrums to save the day. When they're rounded up in a montage, Rowlf asks why his backstory wasn't included. So they back up and give him his moment, too.

When the cameo celebrities pile into the story, that becomes a joke in itself. Selena Gomez admits she doesn't know who the Muppets are: "My agent just told me to show up."

The human actors have a chance to go stratospherically over the top and they relish the opportunity. Segel tears into a sing-your-heart-out-in-the-rain ballad called ‘Man or Muppet’ (most of the new songs are written by Flight of the Conchords star Bret McKenzie.) Adams belts out her lonely gal blues in a restaurant, to the awkward puzzlement of the other diners.

The blue ribbon goes to Chris Cooper as evil oil baron Tex Richman. He's so joyless, he can't emit a proper maniacal laugh. He merely says "maniacal laugh." But when it's time for his ain't-I-despicable character song, Cooper raps like a saggy pants gangsta.

I approached the film with some trepidation, but it took three minutes to win me over. This is one puppet show I recommend with no strings attached.

Next attraction: Immortals