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Category:    Home > Reviews > Comedy > Puppets > Muppet 50Th Anniversary Edition Feature Films (Great Muppet Caper/Treasure Island/Christmas Carol)

Muppet 50Th Anniversary Edition Feature Films

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: C-*     Films: B-

 

* C+ for The Muppets Christmas Carol.

 

 

For the 50th Anniversary of The Muppets, Disney has followed-up the great release of the first season of The Muppet Show (reviewed elsewhere on this site) with four of the main five theatrical film releases of the gang on DVD.  The Muppet Movie (1979) is part of the four that made it, but The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) is not.  That leaves the three film we will look at here.

 

I was not a big fan of The Muppet Movie and thought it was problematic in many ways, so it is fortunate we get to skip that one.  The Great Muppet Caper (1981) is the best film to date, in a tale where the gang go to England and meet up with the wealthy Lady Holiday (the great Diana Rigg) who has a giant jewel called The Baseball Diamond.  She also has a brother (Charles Grodin) who remarkably does not have a British accent and does want to steal the diamond, even if he has to woo Miss Piggy to get it.  Joe Raposo’s songs are very amusing, if not classic, while the screenplay is rich with all kinds of wit, puns, hidden jokes, deconstructions and fun digs.  It is always entertaining and if Rigg had been given more screen time, could have been longer and a classic.  Jim Henson directed himself and has his personal touch all over it.

 

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) has Michael Caine as Scrooge and Brian Henson taking over at the helm, which he returned to do again with Muppet Treasure Island in 1996.  Though they are both good features worthy of the Muppet name, they are also interesting adaptations (something that failed with the Muppet version of Wizard Of Oz, as also reviewed on this site) that smoothly transplant the world of the classic literature into the sensibilities of Muppets.  This includes the idea they the producers have no pretense that they are doing definitive versions of a given work, which gives them room to have all kinds of fun.

 

It would be easy for the producers to coast on the books and the characters in these adaptations, but they exceed those limitations in both cases here.  Caine is good as expected, but does some clever playing along that you would not expect.  Billy Connolly, Tim Curry and Jennifer Saunders from Absolutely Fabulous more than hold their own in Muppet Treasure Island, in part due to their natural comic talents.  As good as these are, this approach eventually collapsed with Oz and it has been too long since an all-original film with the characters has been assembled.  Hope we get The Muppets Take Manhattan and Muppets In Space to look at soon.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image in all cases is better than the chopped 1.33 X 1 versions in all three cases, with The Great Muppet Caper being the grainiest, yet most diverse visually.  The great Oswald Morris, B.S.C., shot the film and it is distinguished from the still good-looking later efforts.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes in all cases are about equal, with Great Muppet Caper showing some of its age.  All are Dolby A-type analog theatrical releases, except for Muppet Treasure Island, which was a Dolby Digital theatrical release and has songs by the great team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.  Extras include brief, different Backstage Disney Pepe Profile segments on all three DVDs, but Muppet Christmas Carol also has a bloopers reel, Christmas Around The World segment and terrific audio commentary by Brian Henson, who directed the film and has carried on the legacy of his father wonderfully.  All three DVDs are quality family titles worth your time.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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