

It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie

The owner of a bank (Miss Bitterman) wants to own the Muppet Theatre so she can build a nightclub over it. After she tricks Pepe into giving her the only copy of the contract between her father and the Muppets, she changes it so the Muppets have very little time to pay a debt they owe. Meanwhile, the Muppets are trying to put on a Christmas show. After the Muppets are confronted by Bitterman, they make a lot of sacrifices to save up so they can keep the Theatre.
_It’s A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie_ is the Muppet take on the Christmas classic, _It’s A Wonderful Life_. However, it’s a halfhearted effort at best and is more of a spoof than an homage. When the Bitterman Bank forecloses on The Muppet Theater, Kermit, in a moment of despair, wishes that he was never born and is shown what the world would have been like without him by a guardian angel. All the comedy is sloppy, obvious, and overly cartoonish, with none of the craft that the Jim Henson Muppets had. David Arquette and Whoopi Goldberg give weak, bland performances that do nothing for the story. The only thing working for the film is Joan Cusack, whose cartoonishness is at least fun to watch. _It’s A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie_ is little more than a second rate parody film, and slowly deteriorates into a series of loose comedy sketches. Still, it’s the Muppets and one can’t help but be drawn in by their charm.