The Muppets

I had both The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Great Muppet Caper (1981) on VHS as a kid and watched them several time over, I'm sure. It was only when I went back as a teenager and gave them each a re-watch that I realized all the subtle and more adult-oriented humor in those films. Nothing was risqué or violent or explicit or kid-unfriendly, but there were a few implicit winks through the fourth wall, a few intentionally awful puns that came from Fozzie, and a few other examples of a movie nodding its head to the parents likely watching the PG-rated stuff with their kids.

The Muppets was a great little movie with game performances from Jason Segel, Amy Adams, and Chris Cooper, but it just didn't give off the same vibes of darker humor. The winks and references are all still there, but it felt otherwise a tad too sweet and saccharine to be a true successor to The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper. That's my only real complaint, I guess, and it's more of an observation than a real complaint. That, and that they couldn't find more to do with Amy Adams since her B-story arc throughout the movie kind of relegated her to being a flat character who eventually turns into a wet blanket for Segel and the extent to which he gets into helping out the Muppets. She was fantastic every time she was on screen - they just couldn't work her into the story in more ways by virtue of how they decided to break her arc with Segel.

Anyway, it was a solid movie with memorable songs and clever jokes, which is really the best that you could hope for from a Muppets revival attempt.