The Muppet Christmas Carol – Film Review

The Muppets perform the classic Dickens holiday tale, with Kermit the Frog playing Bob Cratchit, the put-upon clerk of stingy Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine). Other Muppets — Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie Bear and Sam the Eagle — weave in and out of the story, while Scrooge receives visits from spirits of three Christmases — past, present and future. They show him the error of his self-serving ways, but the miserable old man seems to be past any hope of redemption and happiness.

Few movies have been able to make me feel like a little kid again quite like Brian Henson’s The Muppet Christmas Carol did. Despite how much I enjoy being a twenty-two-year-old, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t miss being a little kid even more so. So much freedom, innocence, and childlike wonder.

This film will surely be able to bring out the little kid in all of us. I never even really grew up on The Muppets but this film took me right back to my childhood and reminded me that children’s entertainment is just as important as adult entertainment. Heck, you could argue that it’s even more important.

The movies we watch as a kid have the ability to shape us as people. It’ll form our film tastes. I can’t imagine how much fun it must’ve been for a youngster to go to the theatre and see this movie with their parents and/or siblings back when it came out in 1992. It must’ve felt, for the lack of a better word, magical.

We all know the story of A Christmas Carol, which this film aims to be a re-telling of. It’s definitely one of my favorite versions of this story, thanks to amazing puppetry work, voice acting, costume design, and musical numbers. The songs in this movie are going to be stuck in my head for days, weeks, and maybe even months.

The script by Jerry Juhl is incredibly rich and wholesome, while also being sure to provide elements in there that the adults watching this with their kids will enjoy as well. It’s kind of interesting how this movie is about an old curmudgeon named Scrooge because if you don’t feel even a tad bit joyous after watching this, you may as well be Scrooge himself.

The Muppets Christmas Carol is an infectiously joyous and wholesome musical comedy drama brought to life by incredible puppeteer work, music, and voice acting. It’s one of those rare movies that will actually take you back to your childhood and make you feel like a little kid all over again.