FBMR - Muppets From Space
Film-Buff Movie Reviews


MUPPETS FROM SPACE (1999) **1/2

I must commend the efforts of the Jim Henson Company; they certainly tried to make this movie live up to the muppet movies of the past. Unfortunately, it fell a little too flat. However, I’m glad the muppets were playing themselves this time and not fictional characters from classic literature. The film’s soundtrack was also very cool.

For whatever reason, I’m not quite sure myself, the zaniness of the muppets died with muppet creator Jim Henson in 1990. Try as they may, or sometimes not at all, the muppets will never be the same. This movie is a good example because even though it tries to be zany, it does not always work. That being said, I still enjoyed this movie, and it manages to be better than the MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL and MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND.

We know Fozzie’s a bear, Kermit’s a frog, Miss Piggy is obviously a pig, but no one, even Gonzo himself, has ever known exactly what kind of being he is; they just classified him as a “whatever”. When Gonzo receives a bizarre message through his breakfast cereal, and meets cosmic knowledge fish, he finds out that his alien people are trying to contact him.

The biggest disappointment in this film was that there weren’t enough of the original characters in the film. Most of them are visible, but have no or very few lines: Rolph, The Electric Mayhem gang, Scooter, and Robin. Some of the new muppets like Johnny Fiama and Sal could also have had more significant roles, too. Although I liked that Pépé The King Prawn, and Bobo The Bear both had large roles. There are also some fun cameos by David Arquette, Ray Liotta, Joshua Jackson, and Katie Holmes, to name a few.

Let’s hope that this is the first in a new series of muppet movies that get progressively zanier as they try to return to the true essence of the muppet spirit.

IMDb - Muppets From Space