The Great Muppet Caper

The Great Muppet Caper is one of those movies I watched as a child... Over... and Over.. and Over again.

Its not really fair of me to review this movie and expect myself to be objective. I know this movie inside and out and if anything was going to cloud my judgment or sway my opinion in this review, its the childhood nostalgia I have for this movie.

Just a warning, however, I will try to give my honest opinion on the film and how it holds up over the years. Was it just a childhood classic or film that holds up over the years?

The Great Muppet Caper follows the suit of a lot of Muppet Movies have, where the Muppets are very aware that they are in a movie. In fact, the first song is called, "Hey, A Movie!" where they sing about how excited they are that they're making a movie.

Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo play reporters for a news paper. When they miss a public robbery of a fashion guru, they're fired from the Daily Chronicle.

They decide that the only way to get their jobs back is to go to London, interview the woman who was robbed, and catch the jewel thief.

Meanwhile, the woman who was robbed, named Lady Holiday (played by Diana Rigg) is confronted by Miss Piggy who wishes to become a model who works for Lady Holiday. Holiday instead hires her as a receptionist but Miss Piggy takes it anyway. While day dreaming about becoming a model, Miss Piggy's identity is mistaken for that of Lady Holiday's by Kermit who of course is smitten with Miss Piggy from the beginning.

Along the way, Kermit is helped by the tenants of the Happiness Hotel to stop Lady Holiday's brother, Nicky Holiday (played by Charles Grodin), who is secretly trying to steal Lady Holiday's infamous Baseball diamond but finds himself smitten with Miss Piggy as well.

I've read reviews of this film that bring forth a few criticisms, that the film is "overplotted" "Uneven" and not edgy enough for a caper film.

Now this is one of those situations where I just can't see past my childhood nostalgia. And even those reviews say that despite those comments, seeing the Muppet cast and the performances given make the film easy to just enjoy and just down right fun.

I have to agree. Being as I've seen this movie multiple times, I thought I'd only see it through my nostalgic childhood eyes. But instead, watching the film, I caught so many jokes that I either didn't catch as a kid, or were too over my head to understand.

And I think that's a great example of a movie staying great even as its time as passed.

And this really seems to be true for all of the Muppet movies. Yes the cameos are out dated and there are a lot of them I still don't quite know, but the in jokes of the character's knowing its a movie, playfulness, and just a fun script make this movie entertaining a decade later.

Its a question that must be posed for the new Muppet movies that have come out in the last few years. I have seen both and surprised that I never got around to writing a review for either of them. But those movies need to ask themselves, are they going to be funny just because Lady Gaga made a cameo, or are they going to be funny because it was fun for kids and adults. Is it going to be fun for kids who watched the Muppet Movie in 2011 to watch it again in 2021 and still enjoy it in a new way, cherishing the memories the movie gave them as a child, and enjoying the smarter jokes as an adult? Or is the film just going to be a notion of its time? Nothing more than that?

I really hope its the first one.

The humor and storytelling in The Great Muppet Caper is just rich and has Jim Henson written all over it.

Is it a little bit weird that Charles Grodin had a thing for Miss Piggy in this movie? Yes, its a little weird. I remember that being weird when I was younger. However, it creates for some funny moments, over the top acting as he is the villain of the film, and some funny quotable lines.

Is the story totally fluid? No. They could have focused a little bit more on Kermit, Fozzie and Gonzo investigating like they said they were going to instead of dabbling in the love triangle and modeling dreams of Miss Piggy, but the performance of the live actors and the performance of the puppeteers is just something that is incredibly hard to top.

There was a video I watched a while ago where someone was interviewing Kermit the Frog. The question was asked, what is the difference between a muppet and a puppet. Kermit plainly answers, well a puppet is something that a person can control, whereas I am an actual talking frog. And that's the funny thing about these muppet movies. Yes, its very obvious that Kermit, Fozzie, Miss Piggy are all muppets and its very strange for humans to not question why they're treating this puppet pig as a real person.

However, next time you watch a Muppet movie, watch the gestures and actions of the muppets, watch how each person interacts with them and suddenly the illusion of these muppets actually interacting individually on their own becomes second nature and you don't question it.

If you don't find the muppets believable or you're going to get distracted by muppets, you're probably not going to like this film. But if you like the Muppet movies, and let's be honest, who doesn't like the Muppets, you're going to feel right at home with The Great Muppet Caper.

The music, while not music you're going to recognize as classics immediately, are just another great element of the film. They're enjoyable and funny. While there are times where it seems they're a little top heavy on how many songs they are playing, the music is done by the same guy who wrote C is for Cookie... so they're catchy enough songs.

If you can't tell, I'm a little bias when it comes to this movie. Like I said before, the humor is very clever and the kind that both kids and adults will enjoy.

Its really a shame because this was actually the first Muppet movie that Jim Henson directed. Henson always was the creative mind behind the muppets but this was the first movie he directed.

It really puts Henson as one of those artists that just was taken from the world too early. I think Henson goes down as one of those great creative minds. Something is so clever about the Muppets. Of course it isn't just him, and movies have come and gone since The Great Muppet Caper and the movies Henson was involved with before he passed.

Hopefully I can get a review of the new Muppet movies up soon and compare the old and the new, see how things have changed since.

Overall, The Great Muppet Caper is a fun movie that, despite a few problems, they're very hard to see behind the brilliance of the Muppets and the fun humor and song that goes along with it.

But what do you think? Is my nostalgia clouding my judgement? Let me know, comment and discuss below.

I'll leave you with this. Here's Bohemian Rhapsody with the Muppets. Enjoy!