Close encounters of the 'Muppet' kind
By Laurel Veit
Summer Forty-Niner
When is it okay to
stick a hand in a sock and act out voices? When the sock is a puppet —
a Jim Henson Muppet.
Once again in the
new furry creature feature "Muppets from Space," the characters led by
Kermit the Frog are on an odyssey to help out one of their own.
Cultivated by his
fear that he is a lone member of his species, Gonzo dreams that Noah (F.
Murray Abraham) refuses to let him onto the Ark. After Gonzo’s alphabet
cereal spells out cryptic messages, "watch the sky" and "r u out there,"
his search begins to finds his biological family. Also hunting down the
aliens is crazed conspiracy theorist K. Edgar Singer, played by Jeffrey
Tambor ("The Larry Sanders Show").
When the Muppets,
who live together in the appropriately titled town Hensonville, realize
that their friend Gonzo is in danger they set out on a mission to save
him.
"Muppets from Space"
includes all the favorite characters and has added a few wonderful new
ones, but for fans of past Muppet films most noticeably absent are the
caught-off-guard, hilarious statements from hippie band member Janice who
she inadvertently reveals that she won’t take her clothes off for anybody.
Another disappointment
is the disappearance-reappearance act by the scene-stealing original diva
Miss. Piggy. Playing a broadcast journalist wannabe, Piggy schemes against
real network newswoman Shelley Snipes, played by Andie MacDowell. Their
adversarial competition eventually comes to blows in a humorous cat-fight
scene.
As with the previous
films, "Muppets from Space" has an array of celebrity cameos which include,
Ray Liotta, David Arquette, Rob Schneider, Josh Charles, Kathy Griffin,
Hulk Hogan, and Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes playing their "Dawson’s
Creek" alter-egos Pacey and Joey.
The late Henson’s
brilliant concept of a film created and marketed for children but wittily
written for their parents, is unfortunately not as polished in this film.
While the adult satire
is a little less adult and a little more juvenile, the movie pays homage
to other films such as, "Star Trek," "Star Wars," Men in Black," "The Wizard
of Oz," and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" complete with a mashed
potato sculpted tower.
Unfortunately "Muppets
from Space" can not quite compare with the cleverness of the past films.
So stay home and rent "Muppets Take Manhattan."
![[news]](http://www.csulb.edu/~d49er/Icon/diversions.gif){kind=icon}
![[news]](http://www.csulb.edu/~d49er/Icon/news.gif){kind=icon}