For those who grew up in the 70s and 80s, the Muppets are usually a fond memory of zany puppetry, colourful characters and occasionally uproarious skits. Disney’s revival of the franchise plays up the nostagia value with a simple story about “getting the band back together”, but doesn’t offer much else that would turn it into a classic for the older folk, nor a new hook for the younger generation.  Entertaining for a while, but ultimately forgettable, and curiously enough, not one for the kids.

Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up) writes and stars, but the humour unfortunately never gets more sophisticated than a couple of wry gags in the opening scenes;  the audience really only laughs out loud at the choir bus joke.  Two of the key conflicts that were supposed to give the film some dramatic weight never really engage the audience, neither Gary’s (Segel) fight with his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams), nor Gary’s battle with his puppet brother Walter over their respective identities as man or muppet.  The new songs aren’t showstopping or memorable, though the most familiar tunes of yesteryear get airtime.  The star-studded cameos of yore also don’t eventuate, with the producers only being able to rustle up Jack Black and a string of B- and C-listers, including, bizarrely, Democratic Party talking head James Carville.

But most egregiously, we don’t get enough of the muppets themselves!  There’s already so many of them, but the writers decided to introduce more (including Walter and the bizarro muppets the Moopets), and thereby reduce the appearances of old faves such as Beaker and Dr Bunsen, The Swedish Chef, Scooter, etc. to a few seconds each.  Even Miss Piggy doesn’t really get to do much.  A travesty!

As far introducing a younger generation to the Muppets, the main vehicle for that was supposed to be the new Muppet Walter, who plays Gary’s brother.  Unfortunately, Walter is a very wet, boring character, and even his special skill is not much to whistle at.  The writers and Disney would have been far better served spending more time with the better developed old favorites and getting the new generation to fall in love with them.  A rebooted, spirited origin story à la JJ Abrams’ Star Trek (2009) is what was required.

I know I’m beginning to sound like Statler and Waldorf (who by the way had better lines in the trailer and the various Muppet Youtube clips than in the film itself), but ultimately this was a mildly entertaining movie, as long as you liked the Muppets as a young’un and want to “play the music” and “light the lights” just one more time.  Otherwise, give it a miss.

½ (out of 5)