Hey its Christmas again and this time its with the Muppets. There is no nice way to put this as the muppets have lovingly ripped off another classic movie and I have to honest and say they do not do anywhere near as good a job as the far superior original. The critics cannot agree on that mind you as I gave it the 74% you see above and thought I was being very generous when looking at the IMDb score of 6.4/10 but then I go and check Rotten Tomatoes and they have it a 90% yes nine zero percent. Maybe people were voting and thinking of the other Christmas Muppet movie. I won’t jump into my summing up yet tempting though it is based on those scores. I will however give you some other nuggets of information instead. Namely that the Tomatoes score is based on 10 critics view of the movie. Of the peoples scores it gets a 51% score which is more like what I was expecting to be honest. This was released in 2002 on a budget of $20m and never reached the cinema to create a box office score so there isn’t one. Why? Well because it was a TV movie and had a host of stars with it as well to name a few here… Steve Whitmire, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, Eric Jacobson, David Arquette, Joan Cusack, Matthew Lillard, William H. Macy and Whoopi Goldberg. This is one of the few Muppets products that are not owned by Disney which may make me move my score up a bit further now. I feel I’ve waffled enough and should now get into the plot.
The plot is basically a copy of the classic movie of “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Kermit plays the lead and David Arquette taking on the Clarence role. Fuzzy is the bungling one that loses the money and then tries to find it again. The theatre that they have worked so hard to obtain and the show that they have put on to save the old building is all there and they are ready to go and pay rent to keep it alive. When Fuzzy loses the cash and Kermit feels responsible and takes the blame. He realises that everyone was relying on him and he has failed them and has reached the end of his ability to cope and says that he wishes he had never been born. This means that David cannot grant the wish but he can show him what the world would be like without him. You can work out the rest for yourself.
I have tried to be honest throughout these reviews and just give my view or explain why I like or don’t like a movie and firstly I have to say I like this movie. But! Its nowhere near my favourite movie. It’s not even close to my favourite Christmas movie. In fact, its not even my favourite Muppets Christmas movie. It is however a fun Christmas movie that is worth a watch. There are some scenes that really did make me laugh out loud and I look forward for them whenever December rolls around and this movie hits the DVD player. There are ups and downs in this movie and that is probably why it is not much higher in the list. As it is good but it doesn’t remain at its best throughout and I spend my time waiting for the next funny part and not enjoying where we are now. So, you could go very far wrong by avoiding this movie where given a chance this will give you good entertainment and not line the pockets of Disney (until they buy it as well!)
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