After a parent in my congregation told me of the horror that is the new Muppet Movie, I had to go and see it for myself.
Here's the basic plot:
Muppets have gone off the air many years ago, and the characters have all gone their separate ways. The theater and studio are all run down and closed up. The trustees have made a deal with "Tex Richman", an obvious parody of George W. Bush, to take ownership of the property (and the Muppet trademarks) and turn it into a museum.
Unbeknownst to the trustees, the property sits above an oil field which apparently can only be accessed by tearing down the entire complex and plopping an oil rig in central Los Angeles.
And this is what Mr. Richman intends to do. Apparently, he's never heard of CEQA!
So, the basic concept behind the story is idiotic.
The story focuses on Walter, a Muppet, and his human brother, Gary. We are never given any explanation for why one of them is made of fabric and Styrofoam, and the other of flesh and blood. Did his mother have an affair with her sewing basket?
I'm not sure I want to know.
For some odd reason, they live together and share a bedroom even up into their 40s, much like Bert and Ernie. (Given Jim Henson's proclivities for the gay fisting of Kermit, we can make a few assumptions about what all went on in their bedroom.) The bedroom scene reeks of perversion and codependency.
On a tour of the studio, Walter -- a sad little pathetic loser as obsessed with all things Muppet as some of our visitors are with that video ga
yme "Mineshaft", "Minecrap", "Minecraft", whatever -- sneaks away from the group and wanders around Kermit's old office. In comes Richman, who naturally explains his whole scheme to his two minions while Walter hides under the desk.
Walter and Gary (and Gary's woman, Mary) hunt down Kermit and convince him to get the whole gang together to have a big telethon and save the theater that they had all abandoned years ago because they didn't care about it anymore.
As one might expect, sentimentality wins out, the entrepreneur gets brutally abused and ends up in the hospital, and America continues to purchase its oil from countries that hate us almost as much as Hollywood does.
This film is nothing but anti-American, anti-capitalist propaganda, with the sole purpose of making anyone with money appear heartless and cruel.
Speaking of people with money, two of the characters' "post-Muppet Show" lives suggest that they could easily have teamed up to simply buy the theater themselves. Limousine liberals, of course.
They didn't cough up a dime.