And my first thought was…..Nostaligia: “Muppet Treasure Island”

Muppet Treasure Island is a heart-warming and hilarious twist on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story filled with Pirates and Miss Piggy. The 1996 musical comedy is packed with memorable music and guest stars who succeed in holding their own alongside the scene-stealing puppets.

I adore Muppet Treasure Island. It stars two of my favourite performers of all time, Tim Curry and Miss Piggy and my dubious boasting rights in conversation with my many musical theatre friends is that by a dodgy technicality I attended the same school as Tim Curry. Whilst the film is in no way perfect it evokes sentimentality rather than annoyance to see and hear the imperfections in the performances. The Muppets are as always the stars of the show, Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy steal the show, their characterisations and bold screen presence dominates the understated performance of Kermit the Frog. I would potentially comment that Rizzo and Gonzo are not utilised as well in this film as they are in Muppets Christmas Film but they still allow some fantastic breaking of the fourth wall, particularly the wonderful line “He died? And this is supposed to be a kids movie!”. Dr Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker and Sam the Eagle are nicely utilised as Dr Liversy, Mr Beaker and Mr Arrow, in a nice decision to feature Muppets that have not seen as much screen time in the 21st century revivals which have a tendency to purely focus on Miss Piggy, Kermit, Gonzo and Fozzie.

The human guest stars are also generally well utilised, Kevin Bishop plays Jim Hawkins with a nice naivety that occasionally feels slightly forced but is as a general rule a more naturalistic performance than is occasionally present with child stars. His singing voice is unpolished but suits the character although I do doubt that Bishop would have been cast if the film were made today. Jennifer Saunders and Billy Connelly both make memorable cameo appearances as Mrs Bluveridge and Billy Bones, Connelly in particular is wonderful as the mad alcoholic who dies several times over whilst giving Jim worthwhile life knowledge like how to find buried treasure and not to run with scissors. Tim Curry is beyond any shadow of a doubt the best (human) performer in the film, his Long John Silver is a lovable rogue with an irresistible charisma and a magnetic screen presence and despite his manipulations and mutiny you do want the old scoundrel to win.

Muppet films are made on the basis of their songs, whilst ‘Cabin Fever’ and ‘Sailing for Adventure’ are both fantastically catchy songs, the best song is by far ‘Professional Pirate’. It is by far the most memorable moment of the film with it’s fantastic lyrics like ‘I could have been a lawyer but I just had too much heart’ and the wonderfully knowing line ‘Take Sir Francis Drake, the Spanish all despise him but to the British he’s a hero and they idealise him’. The rest of the songs are far less memorable and it would be nice if Miss Piggy had been given a more memorable song than ‘Love led us here’ which is by far the most dull moment of the film.

The script is fantastically subtlety filthy, it allows the film to play at a duel level and I think one of the reasons I love it so much is that it is still just as good a film when you are 20 as when you are 10, you simply appreciate certain jokes more. Gonzo and Rizzo’s wonderful lines “And my pants are filled with starfish” “You and your hobbies”  and Miss Piggy’s “Hello Long John…” “Him too?” particularly spring to mind.

I love this film and thoroughly enjoyed the excuse to spend an evening in the company of Miss Piggy, Kermit and Fozzie, I only wish that the 2015 TV series could remember to follow the formula of previous incarnations- filthy humour and adult material is fine BUT it is supposed to be done with a sense of childhood wonderment that is simply missing from the most recent incarnation.

4.5/5.0

And my first thought was….Hector and the search for happiness

Film rather than television today, as I take a quick look at Hector and the Search for Happiness. This 2014 ‘comedy’ left a distinctly mixed impression with it’s interesting depictions of mental health treatment and disjointed narrative mixed with someone interesting motifs, humorous moments and heart-warming (if occasionally nausea inducing) message.

The film is in essence another star vehicle for Simon Pegg, who outside of the niche world of British surrealist comedy and the films of Edgar Wright has predominantly found himself playing second fiddle to american action stars as british geeks (seems like typecasting to me). Pegg makes for a reasonably convincing leading man as Hector, a psychiatrist who realises that his life of routine has little meaning when he loses it with a patient, and decides to go on a world trip to discover what happiness is. There were places that I felt that Pegg was unable to properly convey the emotional intensity that the role required, particularly in the kidnap scenes and Hectors emotional epiphany in LA but generally it was a decent performance. Rosamond Pike’s performance conflicted me, on the one hand I know that Pike is a fantastic actress (see Gone Girl) but the role of Clara comparatively allowed very little of that talent to shine through, the performance felt jerky, particularly towards the end and the emotional leap Clara takes in the space of five minutes felt unrealistic particularly as I spent 75% of the film under the impression that she was cheating on him to get ahead at work.

Peter Chelsom’s use of motif was interesting if tragically underused. The yellow biplane and the younger Hector with his dog were interesting motifs scattered throughout the film but the under utilisation of them for any real purpose made them incongruous to the rest of the narrative . I feel as though the film could have been improved my Chelsom making a firmer decision over his conceptualisation of the film .

The script was by-in-large the emotional anaesthetic that the title suggests that it will be. However, there were some troubling moments in the film that left me questioning the screenwriters motives and understanding. Most prominently, the kidnap/torture scenes which felt as though there should have been more done with them, I felt as though the static narrative didn’t allow for the film explore the full impact that something that traumatic would have (even discounting for the possibility that he wouldn’t develop full blown PTSD).I wanted the script to have allowed for a slightly more dramatic interpretation of the events, even if it was just five minutes of Hector sitting down with his friend Michael and actually talking about what he went through, the conclusion Hector makes could be exactly the same, Benedict Cumberbatch who went through a similar experience in South Africa’s public comment on the incident has been reflect that the incident taught him to seize life as it comes. As it was the film almost brushed over the trauma of the kidnapping in favour of Hector hitting on women half his age (again). I feel like they should have done more with one of their most emotionally charged scenes.

Secondly, I felt as though the Agnes/Hector scenes could have been handled better, the sense of the void between them was underplayed and I felt as though the emotional breakthrough Hector has could have been made more profound by making his conversation with Agnes more emotionally charged and allowing her more time to explain her perspective, allowing the scenes in LA to feel more bittersweet and less ‘man-child in strop’. Overall, I feel as though making the narrative less static would have allowed for a smoother emotional transition, the film is supposed to be an emotional journey but it felt like several short emotional trips.  I also personally felt as though the objectification of women was rather cheap, I would have liked more scenes in which the women around him were not just much-younger objects of desire, this could have been achieved by making his de-objectification of the young lady in Africa more obvious and as previously stated, maturing the Agnes/Hector conversation.

I also personally felt as though the solution to the majority of Hector’s problems would have been for him to perhaps think about treating patients with more acute mental illnesses rather than the rather comedic but banal cases that he was actually treating, but that my just be me…

Hector and the Search for Happiness is never going to be a cinematic masterpiece but it made for reasonably good visual anaesthesia and whilst I don’t believe that I will watch it again in the immediate future, I’m not going to demand two of hours of my life back either. I feel as though perhaps there was more that could have been done to emotionally charge the film more but it is not an unsatisfying film.

2.5/5.0

Hector and the Search for Happiness can now be found on Netflix.

And my first thought was: The Toy story series

Continuing my attempts to build up a portfolio of film, television (and when I can, theatre) reviews. Today I turn to my the film series that defined my childhood nearly as much as Harry Potter and English Breakfast tea. Pixar’s Toy Story series is beyond any shadow of a doubt one of the greatest phenomena to ever play at a cinema. From the storytelling, to the ground breaking technology behind the franchise, the series is a true masterpiece . It is incredibly difficult to express how much the series means to me but I have seen all three films at least a thousand times and I still cry at Toy Story 2 and 3. This an extremely short post as unlike Doctor Who or Game of Thrones. I cannot fault anything about the franchise (with the possible exception of the lack of strong female characters in the first film).