Muppet Treasure Island (1996) Review

Muppet Treasure Island is the best Muppet film to date. It has a perfect mixture of brilliant songs and a, dare I say, exquisite placing of the old characters in new roles and an incomparable performance by Tim Curry. Can you tell I like it yet? Just wait there's more.

Sort of like Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Treasure Island (written by Robert Louis Stevenson) is a book that everyone knows the plot of. Even if they haven't read it. This film follows the same basic storyline with a few surprises. I don't want to accidently give away those surprises so I don't want to tell you which Muppet plays what character suffice it to say that The Great Gonzo and Rizzo The Rat play themselves.

It should come as no surprise the Muppet performers are superb. To a lot of people in the world these are living breathing characters. It's not enough to move the eyes evenly or match the mouth to the words. You have to inhabit the character. Performers like Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire are better than most "real" actors in the world. The best human performance in the film is by Tim Curry who has been given his best role in years and his tactic is to out shine but not upstage the puppets. It's a thin line and he walks it beautifully.

The test of a really good song is one that I am willing to listen to over and over and over again. There is not a song in the film where I say, "glad that's over". Every song in the film is wonderfully written (and ahem massively singable). I can't pick a favorite song because they are all so unique from one another but all of them fit the soundtrack perfectly as a whole.

As I said this picture is the best Muppet film so far. Immensely entertaining and yet so simple and childlike. Jim Henson would be proud.

★★★★