Anyone who is or was a fan of what Jim Henson used to do with Kermit the Frog and company will be pleased with what ‘The Muppets’, the most purely nostalgic film of the year (perhaps aside from ‘Midnight in Paris’), has to offer. This is the best the Muppets have been since Henson’s untimely death, and while it’s not quite on the level of the original film ‘The Muppet Movie’, this is probably their second best outing to date on screen. By completely rejecting cynacism, writers Jason Segel (who also co-stars) and Nicholas Stoller embrace what made these characters special. One can perhaps argue that at times this new film is a bit more childish than the of the Muppets canon, but by and large this is a rousing success. Director James Bobin opens up the adventure in a visual way that most previous Muppet flicks didn’t, making for a nice looking movie as well. By the time the third act comes around and all but perfectly re-creates an episode of ‘The Muppet Show’, this crew will have won you over, if they haven’t already. For me, the whole lot of it worked and made for one of the most consistently entertaining films of the year.
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