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It’s nearly impossible to mess up a film with the Muppets, especially one that simply plugs them into an already existing story like in Muppet Treasure Island. That doesn’t mean every single movie is going to be golden, and Muppet Treasure Island is definitely a bronze medal entry.
There’s a few funny gags, and the musicals numbers are filled with the same sense of anarchic glee even if they’re in service of unmemorable songs, and Tim Curry hams it up with his brand of over-the-top braggadocio. Yet there’s still a certain spark missing from Muppet Treasure Island, and I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. Maybe it’s just an overall feeling of a weaker script? There is nowhere near enough Miss Piggy for my tastes. Gonzo and Rizzo can make for a lively duo when effectively used, but the script doesn’t want to give them enough winking humor and fourth-wall breaking gags. Billy Connolly and Jennifer Saunders are both horribly underutilized, despite giving it their all in their too brief time on screen.
So praise be to Curry for out-acting and over-emoting the entire lot of Muppets every chance he gets, because he’s a real livewire here, consistently giving the film energy and life whenever its gags fall flat or timing feels off. A Muppet movie is a formula that can’t fail, but that doesn’t mean it always succeeds. Instead we get varying levels of good, for every classic (The Muppets or The Muppet Movie), we get oddball entries that aren’t bad, but they aren’t the Muppets at their brightest either. Here is one of those movies.
