The Muppets: Critic Reviews

For kids, blessedly unironic by nature until wised up by nurture, the movie is just shiny, funny, and filled with songs...

These are the same old, adorable Muppets, as sweetly innocent and likable as ever. Winking at itself, the movie is casually, amusingly self-reflexive.

Blending self-deprecating comic asides with high-spirited showmanship, the movie captures the essence of Jim Henson's classic 1970s TV show and 1979's The Muppet Movie.

"The Muppets" is both a delightful family film about the Muppets and a winking, self-referential satire about how lame the Muppets are.

I've never seen a movie so perfectly balanced between unabashed nerdiness and hipness. It's transcendent that way.

Desperately trying to appeal to not just the Gen Xers who grew up with Kermit, Miss Piggy, and Dr. Teeth, but also the tykes who've never even heard of Jim Henson, The Muppets has none of the easy confidence of the original TV show or the 1979 movie.

If Segel's efforts aren't quite sensational, that's okay. They're still inspirational, celebrational and - most important - Muppetational, a concept that's been in sadly short supply as of late.

No fourth wall is safe in The Muppets, and that's a great piece of news.

[Filmmakers] hew close to the essential innocence informing the Muppets' silliness.

The Muppet franchise is revitalized with "The Muppets," a funny, wickedly self-aware musical that opens by acknowledging they've outlived their shelf life.

It's fun to spend time with these characters again.

Except for a few good zingers from balcony dwellers Statler and Waldorf, there isn't much here for mom and dad.

The Muppets treats its titular heroes with affection and respect, even as Fozzie Bear shows off his "fart shoes" and toilet humor abounds.

"The Muppets" made me feel warm and Fozzie.

Is it perfect? No. Is it a lot of fun and does it successfully revive this inspired franchise? Absolutely and let's seriously hope so. A world without Kermit is just too hard to face.

"The Muppets" is clever and current without being cynical, smart without being condescending, funny without being exclusionary to grown-ups or to kids.

Effortlessly blending wised-up, self-reflexive humor with old-fashioned let's-put-on-a-show pizzazz, The Muppets is an unexpected treat

The Muppet relaunch is as it should be: the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational treat you could wish for on a holiday weekend.

The musical comedy whimsically and often cleverly revisits the characters, their shtick and and the TV show and movies that made them most famous.

A delighted woman behind me almost needed oxygen as she watched Camilla and her singing chicken gals do a cheeky, clucking rendition of Cee Lo Green's "Forget You."

You can rest easy - if you have previously loved the Muppets, you will likely currently love The Muppets.

The Muppet charm, always more at home within the intimate frame of a TV set, is gone here.

No matter who you're taking to the movies, and even if you're going by yourself, you can't go wrong with this one.

Like Statler and Waldorf, older viewers may kvetch and cavil about the details, but when that red velvet curtain goes up, we wouldn't give up our balcony seats for the world.

Kids today will have the same kind of fun at The Muppets they have at all films of this kind. Adults, however, will connect in a deeper way.