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When I began watching The Muppets Take Manhattan, the choppy presentation and dialogue had me convinced I was watching something recent, so you can imagine my surprise when I came to the IMDb and read that it was made in 1984. Jim Henson may have ended The Muppet Show when it was at its peak, but spin offs like this and Muppet Babies (which apparently is based upon a very terrible sequence in this film) are the absolute nadir of all things Muppet. I used to wonder why Muppets attracted such derision from such film reviewers as Mr. Cranky, so I am glad that The Muppets Take Manhattan (henceforth: TMTM) set me straight on that one. Of course, many series have had a massive drop off in quality when the third episode came around: Aliens, RoboCop, The Evil Dead, even Night Of The Living Dead. So while it is no surprise that TMTM is less than The Muppet Movie or The Great Muppet Caper, the surprise lies entirely in how much less than the awesome debut or its slightly lesser follow-up TMTM is. Not only is the music far less satisfying, the scenes that link it all together are utterly terrible.
There are, of course, some redeeming and genuinely funny moments, but they are few and far between. The Swedish Chef is great in any scene he inhabits, so thank the spirit of small mercies that he appears in one sequence where his eccentricity is exploited to the fullest. The problem is that there are just no scenes that work. The story, such as it is, revolves around a Broadway musical Kermit is attempting to get produced. He goes through many trials and tribulations along the way, including the sneaking suspicion the viewer has that we have seen this all before. The biggest problem is that Kermit does not have a decent antagonist to work off this time. Charles Durning was cinematic gold as Doc Hopper, the proprietor of a fast food chain who wants to exploit Kermit for his business. Charles Grodin was dynamite as Nicky Holiday, a jewel thief the Muppets must fight in order to save Miss Piggy from a lifetime in prison. The saying is that a hero is only as good as his antagonist, and these two are at least half responsible for the greatness of the previous two films.
Charles Grodin also highlights what is wrong with TMTM. Namely, the music sucks. The opening number of the Manhattan Melodies show that is at the centre of TMTM, to put it nicely, makes the drivel that now dominates the airwaves seem coordinated. I might just be letting my peculiar sensitivity to the sounds of words and phrases getting to me, but songs like The Rainbow Connection inspired tears of joy, not irritation. Grodin's big solo during The Great Muppet Caper, while not having the same resonation, he lifts the tone of the film eight steps on his own. He is all class. And if there is one thing TMTM could use, it is rising eight steps in addition to attaining a semblance of class. TMTM also feels severely time-compressed, with the story leaping from scene to scene without any consideration for making sense or giving the story cohesion. Maddox himself pointed out that transition and cohesion make a film feel like a coherent whole rather than a mess of thrown-together pieces. See if you can find them in TMTM.
While TMTM does have its guest stars, they are either poorly utilised (Brooke Shields and John Landis), or totally out of their element (Liza Minelli, Dabney Coleman). To call this a waste of time for puppeteer and actor alike is flattery. The absence of an end credits routine is especially sore here, after Animal's "go home" postscript for The Muppet Movie in particular. Which highlights another problem. The characters are poorly written at best, with none of their individual quirks to be seen or heard. Animal shouts singular words at times, but they have nothing to do with the plot, or the conversation going on around him. Say what you will about set pieces designed to show off characters, but think of Animal's moment after eating the instant growth pills, or his "sowwy" after the incident when he pulled the window down on top of his fellow Muppets. Now see if you can remember a single memorable moment with an individual Muppet other than Swedish Chef's hilarious misunderstanding of three-dimensional film involving popcorn. Give up? Then you have proved my point.
Given that Labyrinth, one of the Henson company's best and most timeless products outside of the Muppets, arrived some two years later, it makes TMTM all the more puzzling. Perhaps this misfire convinced Jim Henson to rethink his strategy regarding character development and usage. Or perhaps the misfire can be attributed to Frank Oz, who at the time had just finished working with George Lucas on what many would agree is the most childish episode in the original Star Wars saga. The writers were also involved with The Great Muppet Caper, so I will let them off the hook for this in spite of the fact that a script is one of the most essential pieces of a film. The production is also substantially improved here, with Muppets appearing capable of moving in ways that were previously beyond them. Had the story and script been better thought-out, TMTM might have been at least comparable to The Great Muppet Caper. As it stands now, it is a great answer to the question of whether Muppets write under the influence, or excrete.
For that reason, I gave The Muppets Take Manhattan a three out of ten. Two to denote its actual quality, and a bonus for the Swedish Chef's moments. Without him, this film would be unwatchable.


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