The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)

I don’t know what to say about this one. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad film, but was it great? While ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan’ was good, it didn’t have the same sparkle and magic that the first two films have.

I suppose my first problem with this film was the opening, where we have an overview of Manhattan and Kermit singing “da da de do”. Not only was this tedious, but it proved to be a waste of time since we would then go into a scene where Kermit and Co sing a song anyway, so why didn’t we have the opening credits go over that scene? Rather than spend almost two minutes of being bored to death.

 

There’s another thing, the songs in this are fairly forgettable. Sure, ‘Saying Goodbye’ was sad, but most of the songs were surprisingly bland. ‘Rat Scat’ did have a great tune, but it was brought down by the fact that it had no lyrics apart from Rizzo making random sounds, like “da da deboo deboobeboobee”. It would’ve been better to just have the tune, Rizzo’s addition got quickly annoying.

 

In fact, my favourite song from this was ‘I’m Gonna Always Love You’, for when the Muppet babies sang. Whilst it was quite shocking at first to see the Muppets as babies, it had a great tune, great lyrics, and some great comedic moments. It was the best song of the film for me.

Now, back to the ‘Saying Goodbye’ song. Starting off, the Muppets attempt to make ‘Manhattan Melodies’ a success on Broadway. So it wasn’t that much of a surprise when the Muppets go to see a producer, and he immediately says yes. Well what did you expect? The Muppets in the first film got the ‘rich and famous’ contract by just walking into the guy’s office.

But then the film does something unexpected, the producer is revealed to be a conman, the conman is defeated, Kermit’s and friends have their dreams destroyed and they split up to pursue other things, all before the 24^th minute! The pacing for the first half hour is just bizarre, everything you’d expect within a full feature length, has just happened before the twenty-five minutes! And we still have an hour an ten minutes to pad out!

The first half hour had so much happen yet was bland, the songs were weak, the jokes weren’t that funny and the Muppets themselves looked bored. And they’re puppets! There aren’t any fourth wall jokes so it feels less like a Muppet movie. Sure, there are some moments which were pretty good, like Animal chasing, as he says, “woman!”, Rizzo scene-stealing, and the ‘Saying Goodbye’ song, but everything up until this point was terrible.

 

It’s also this point that we find that Kermit has the worse friends ever! Why? Well, they abandon him when he needs them the most! Sure Kermit snapped when they kept asking him what they should do, but they effectively leave him to do all the hard work! Working out ideas, going to see producers, etc, etc, while they go off and do their own thing.

But strangely enough, it was this point where the film starts to pick up. The jokes were actually funny, we had some pretty decent songs and we had some great chemistry between the human and puppet characters. Miss Piggy’s bit were probably the best when she reacts in fury whenever she sees Kermit hug Janet (Juliana Donald), especially the first time when moments earlier, Miss Piggy was getting whistled at by three construction workers. Their reaction to Miss Piggy’s mini-rampage was fantastic.

Though when we later see Miss Piggy roller-skating after a mugger who stole her bag, it’s plainly obvious it isn’t Miss Piggy. And we also get another scary Miss Piggy moment.

But even at this point the film tries to force another plot point, this one is Kermit getting hit by a car and getting amnesia. They threw this in at the last minute to pad out the film even more, even though it doesn’t add anything as it doesn’t go anywhere.

But despite all that the film does remain strong, the acting is great, the puppeteering is great, the comedy and songs for the last hour are great. As I said earlier it doesn’t hold up against the first two Muppet films, but it is still a good film for anyone and everyone of all ages to enjoy.