Muppets from Space (1999)

Directed by Tim Hill; Voices include Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Bill Barretta, Jerry Nelson, Brian Henson, Kevin Clash, Frank Oz, and starring Jeffrey Tambor

I must say that I pretty much grew up with the Muppets Movie, so I thought that maybe that child-at-heart would still be present to enjoy this new film from the Muppets. Evidently it was not. I did like A Muppet’s Christmas Carol and gave a slight recommendation to Muppet Treasure Island, but Muppets from Space was not near the endearing fun that the others were. Instead it seemed like just a few uses of some rather unfunny and previously used jokes.

For this film, the main Muppet is not Kermit, but Gonzo. I must admit that when I was younger Gonzo was always my favorite, but here he is boring and uninteresting. Gonzo begins to wonder what his family is (after a funny dream sequence involving F. Murray Abraham as Noah), so he begins to find clues. All the clues point to him being from space and that his family is going to come to space to get him. This is great news to K. Edgar Singer (Tambor), a covert operative man in charge of finding aliens. So Singer kidnaps Gonzo and the rest of the bunch must go out and save him.

The film is boring and has little imaginative fun. The cameos are so blatant (especially the Hulk Hogan one) that not even they are fun (with maybe the exceptions of Abraham, Pat Hingle, and Ray Liotta). The songs are tough to sit through as it is just a rehash of some 70s tunes that have been played in every film set in the 70s. I did laugh a few times, but almost all were at small parts, rarely at anything substantial. I still liked the characters somewhat, but felt like they had served their time and it was time for them to retire. What is really scary is that this little 90 minute film seemed much longer than the 157 minute Eyes Wide Shut.