Best Exotic Muppet Safe House

Possible Spoilers Ahead. 

Image via Wikipedia

I headed into Brighton yesterday to catch up with my cinema-going, having got rather into the habit of hibernation through the recent colder weather. Typically for me, the mild spring-like day with its bright sunshine saw me exchanging one indoors for an even darker one and I saw three films in succession: Only emerging, blinking into the sunlight for twenty minutes to stoke up with some healthy junk food before heading back into the darkness.

The films turned out to be a pleasant triple-bill albeit one pretty much devoid of surprises: The first two, Safe House and The Muppets, being shamelessly recycled plots so that any "twists" were seen coming from miles off.

Safe House was a well-made thriller with a good cast including favourites actors of mine: Brendan Gleason and Denzel Washington. Our hero, an untested but apparently gifted and idealistic young CIA agent, played by Ryan Reynolds.

Denzel Washington (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

There was a good feeling of jeopardy and plenty of action although, as previously mentioned, no real surprises in the plot. The action was competently shot but inevitably in these post-Greengrass Bourne-besotted days, relied heavily on hand-held or loose-head shots to give it movement. More important in such films is rhythm and pacing and I thought in the main this was handled well. A predictably enjoyable time-passer for my opening course.

Jim Henson (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

No surprises at all in the second course: Everything you need to know about The Muppets is there in the title. You either like Muppets or you don't. If you don't then I imagine you will just let this revival pass by. If you do, you will almost certainly welcome their re-appearance doing exactly what they were doing in the eighties and nineties, although in reality they've never really been away, certainly on TV specials and DVDs, and since Disney finally got their mitts on them in 2004 it was inevitable they would want the franchise to get out there and earn.
 

Image via Wikipedia

Personally I enjoyed the nostalgia and meeting my heroes Animal, Gonzo and Swedish Chef again (although these latter two weren't given an awful lot to do). The plot is as old as the hills and I'm sure the Muppets have used it before, let alone many others over the years. They need to raise money to pay off the evil landlord and stop their heritage being bull-dozed. There are some nice knowing little gags about the "getting the gang back together" cliche and I love the idea of "travelling by map" as unwittingly featured in so many cinema montage sequences.

The film owed more to the television series than their previous cinema outings like Muppet Treasure Island and Christmas Carol. All the Muppets returned as far as I could see but many didn't get to do much of their trademark stuff. All in all it was a welcome return but perhaps it was in the nature of testing the water and they will make a better, more original film if this makes money (and actually I think it's already done well in the U.S.). I hope so. I still love Kermit, Piggy, Fozzy and the gang and the fact that the work of the great Frank Oz and Jim Henson has ended up in the hands of the evil empire may ensure a future for them. I have to say I have mixed feelings about Disney. I grew up on the magic of their wonderful animated features and shorts and even though intellectually I don't like a lot of what they've done and stood for over the years I very quickly suppressed those doubts on a trip to Disneyland Paris. I want to believe in the magic and I want to hope that the revered Pixar and Henson businesses will prosper under Disney, not be stifled.

Anyway to return to the current film: As always there were a number of cameos and some joyful musical interludes. One of the songs has already been honoured by the Academy and for once I'm happy with their choice, especially as it was written by the "Flight of the Conchords" Bret Mckenzie. The brilliant Jim Parsons, "Sheldon" from The Big Bang Theory, featured in that one showing hitherto unguessed talents. Other non-muppet appearances included Jack Black in the typical reluctant celebrity guest role and briefer appearances from the likes of Whoopie Goldberg, Alan Arkin and the venerable Mickey Rooney who cut his teeth on this kind of "the show must go on" schtick what seems like centuries ago.

The non-Muppet stars are well-cast as believably good-hearted innocents from small-town middle-America - Jason Segel, who co-wrote, is Gary, (whose brother Walter is, for some reason I really don't think we need to trouble ourselves with, a Muppet) and Amy Adams who played Giselle in Enchanted, and I imagine has Disney written right through her, as much-loved homespun schoolmarm Mary.

The villain of the piece, a man so evil he gets his henchmuppets to do his "maniacal laugh" for him, is the always-watchable Chris Cooper, most familiar to me from the Bourne movies. Good cast, especially if you include Animal, Piggy and co. but am I trying not to say that I was slightly disappointed? Perhaps not, but in the main it did exactly what I expected of it, but no more.


The third film of the day, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, had a dream cast too: This time every mature lovey in the English actor directory: Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Dame Judy, Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup, Penelope Wilton, Tom Wilkinson... The owner of the hotel is young Dev Patel and there are brief appearances by some other young actors including the very young "the little girl off Outnumbered"  Ramona Marquez, but in the main this was reunion day for the actor/pensioners and the audience (which was the biggest of the day) reflected that, although it was interesting to note that age is no barrier to kicking the seat of the person in front or irritatingly dazzling them with the screen of your mobile device.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

This is a feel-good movie from what I hear is a very good book by Deborah Moggach (right). I'm prepared to believe that the book is better but then it (almost) always is...

The fact that it is clear who this film is for, and that the emotions it is going for are obvious, shouldn't detract too much. There is a place for this and it does make a change for a film to be targeting (albeit so shamelessly) a mature audience rather than going for the junior dollar with gooey, vampire teengirl wish-fulfilment nonsense. Anyway, I suppose I am the target audience for once and should probably go along with it.

At any rate it is a pleasure to see all these undoubtedly great actors in an ensemble of which we shall possibly never see the like again (unless it makes real money of course...). I'm a fan of most if not all these actors and my only criticism is usually that they are such hugely recognisable figures that it is hard to see them as characters other than themselves. For instance Dame Judy's turn in Jane Eyre stood out in a film with a fairly unknown cast in a way that detracted from the narrative flow. The best thing to do with these icons then is to stick them all together so no-one stands out like a sore thumb.

The other good thing about this film was that it wasn't written by Richard Curtis and the writing is fresher and sometimes really comes to life (It's by Oli "Grange Hill" Parker who hasn't done much film work as far as I know). There were a number of nice pithy one-liners.

Some of the story-arcs, notably Maggie Smith's harshly-spoken racist char mellowing into a sweet worldy-wise and warm-hearted business manager were less than believable in a film time-frame and probably worked much better in the book. Still I find her fascinating in all her roles and was quite happy to go along with it.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

While it was exactly what I was expecting and the third in a row to not surpass those expectations it was a warm, fun film (apart from the undeniably negative role played by Penelope Wilton) and judging by the slight ripple of applause, appreciated by its audience.