Muppets never get old.
The original movies -- The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, and The Muppets Take Manhattan -- remain entertaining regardless of age.
If you’re looking for goofy, ridiculous, clean fun, you can’t do better. The Muppets are absurdity at its finest. People who take themselves too seriously need not apply.
You can split hairs over which old-school Muppet movie is the strongest, but the award for best Muppet bad guy definitely goes to the first -- The Muppet Movie’s Doc Hopper, played superbly by the late Charles Durning.
Consider Kermit’s goals in the movie. He wants to become a famous performer so he can make people happy.
Doc Hopper wants Kermit to become his mascot to sell french-fried frog legs.
So we have an intersection of motivations. Doc Hopper would indeed grant part of Kermit’s wish. He’ll make him a famous performer, but it would be a perversion of why Kermit wants to perform.
Welcome to the first installment of POSITIVE REVIEWS.
I hate to speak ill of other people’s hard work, so you’ll only find me pointing out the good stuff, whether it’s movies, books, television, etc.
But let’s start in the wonderful world of comic books, with UNCANNY X-MEN #172 & 173. (There will be SPOILERS, but these books did come out in 1983.)
There’s a lot going on in these two issues, which primarily serve as a follow-up to the excellent WOLVERINE limited series by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.
So it continues that story, continues the evolution of Storm (prepare to see her as you’ve never seen her before -- with a mohawk!), teases the mystery of Madelyne Pryor a bit more (yes, Cyclops, dating an exact look-alike of your dead ex sounds like a swell idea and can’t possibly hurt the poor girl in any conceivable way), and establishes Rogue as one of the X-Men.
It’s all good and fun. This is Claremont at the peak of his writing, and the art by Paul Smith is smooth and clean, with a nice flow to it. Frank Miller’s a tough act to follow, but Smith does a superb job.
Where these issues really excel, however, are with the Rogue bits.
