Matt brings on guest Puppetry expert Brian Hogg, founder of Hoggworks, to review Jason Segel’s new instalment to the well loved (and recently poorly handled) Muppet franchise! Since these are two children of the 80′s talking about what a child of the 80′s did with their childhood friends, it could get messy. And long.
The Geekiest movie of the year? Quite possibly.
If you were born in the 70′s or 80′s, the Muppets are as much a part of your childhood as the Transformers, Arnie, MJ, Voltron and G.I.Joe combined.
So when Jason Segel and Disney team up to bring back some of entertainment’s most adored characters, the 7-year old geek inside us all stirs and we can’t quite explain it, but we get a little bit misty eyed at the sight of a felt frog, a blonde pig, and a bear with whoopie cushions.
An best of all, there’s no reimagining, no CG puppets and no bad surgery. They all look exactly the way we remember.
These little fellas have skipped an entire generation, but now is the time for people of all ages to enjoy Henson’s genius on the big screen.
Right where they belong.
Now, we’re not saying there’s anything WRONG with twisted metal and 3D Bay-splosions… in fact, making a film in 3D seems to have slowed down Bay’s editing pace considerably. But if you were expecting maybe third times the charm for Bay and the Transformers source material, you’ll be just as disappointed by this one as all the others. There’s barely enough to recognize your favourite 80′s cartoon was the basis of this 2.5-hour romp, but after it leaves you exhausted at the credits, you’ll need to watch the original cartoon to remind yourself what the Ark was and that Shockwave has a broader vocabulary than a cockroach.
No Orlando and no Kiera? But we get McShane and Cruz instead? Sounds like a good recipe, but going back to the well after the trilogy has been told is risky. We’re hearing any subsequent Pirates films will be strictly one-offs, so let’s talk about how they set the precedent with “On Stranger Tides”!
One look at the newly redesigned lightcycles in Tron, and you know this movie is going to be a wild ride. And it performs surprisingly well as a better-late-than-never sequel that takes advantage of new actors and technology (and pushes it a bit past where it can actually go). But for his first feature film, Kosinski made the most common kind of mistake: story.
After nearly three decades, a return to the virtual world of Tron has been promoted at Comic Cons around the world for more than a year. With an ‘evolved’ look from the 80′s classic, some Tron purists are up in arms about the redesign, but you can’t deny that TRON Legacy has a gorgeous production design. But what about this digital Jeff Bridges?
By all rights, Paranormal Activity 2 is better than the first. It has more characters, more interesting characters, better camera work, cooler effects, even better sound design and a bigger, more impressive story. But somehow, just doesn’t measure up to the visceral experience of watching the first one. We’ve already had this experience and it was called Paranormal Activity. That doesn’t mean we didn’t jump out of our seats and lose some popcorn watching this bad boy. It packs a spook.
