New Muppets Movie Is Terrific

Resurrecting a legendary franchise is a daunting task—but Jason Segel, Amy Adams, and the guys behind Flight of the Conchords have done it with roaring success. In the new Muppets film, the stars track down the Muppets in puppet retirement for a whole new show. (It's got a 98% positive rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.)

• “The Muppets won me over, over and over and over again,” writes Christopher Orr in the Atlantic. “Equal parts tender and hilarious, heartfelt and sly,” the movie “is an utter delight, a tidal surge of joyful nostalgia cunningly repackaged and updated.”

• Sure, “there are a few stumbles, but not too many,” notes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. Once we arrive at “a showstopping number that asks the burning question—'Am I a man, or a Muppet?'— you are completely hooked.”
• “It should be universally acknowledged that a world with Muppets is a better place in which to live,” writes Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. If the film can’t bring back the early days of the Muppets, it achieves “an equally worthy aim: reminding us what we’ve been missing.”
• In short, “the rainbow connection is a smooth, unbroken arch,” writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times.

(More Muppets stories.)