Mrs W and I love a new cinema and so on our weekend in Amsterdam it seemed only the right thing to do to trudge through the snow to the huge Pathe Munt cinema to watch a movie which isn' out in the UK until next week.
Watching a film in Holland is a revelation. This is where we can understand why they speak such fantastic English.
Adverts in English, trailers in English and a movie in English - all with Dutch sub-titles , of course.
But it became clear during the course of the Muppets that the crowd, including young children weren't reading because they were laughing at precisely the same times as us.
And, boy, did we laugh.
Writers Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller have recreated the innocence of these wonderful characters and proved that there is no need for coarseness to create brilliant comedy.
Segel stars in The Muppets, alongside Amy Adams. Both give joyful performances, completely in line with their puppet co-stars.
Meanwhile, it is worth taking pen and paper to see if you can keep up with the top-line acrtors who have cameos.
To get you started, I'll give you 91-year-old Mickey Rooney!
Inevitably, however, the real stars are Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and pals.
The premise of the story is that an evil businessman (Chris Cooper) wants to demolish the rundown Muppet Studios to dig for oil.
It seems that there is a contract which says the Muppets can stop him doing this if they can raise $10 million.
The idea transpires for them to create a telethon show...but they haven't even seen each other for years, let alone performed together.
The glue in all of this is a new chaarcter called Walter who is best friends with Segel, who is longtime boyfriend of Adams (don't worry it makes sense on the screen).
Segel looks like he is having the time of his life and Adams rekindles memories of her beautiful perfomance in Enchanted.
I have written about laughing quite a lot already in January but this was on a different plane. I stopped counting after a dozen laugh-out-loud moments.
The movie was wonderfully self-mocking and the songs were just super (Man Or Muppet is nominated for an Oscar).
And, I have to say, I had a little lump in my throat because it reminded me of a day long before reality TV and cynicsm.
The Muppets used to be wholesome family entertainment. Wouldn't it be brilliant if that innocence could return to our screen every week.
Mind you, in this movie they are even funnier than I remember them.
Laughs: 12 out loud, many many chortles.
Jumps: none
Vomit: Don't be ridiculous this is the Muppets
Nudity: Kermit often appears in the altogether.
Rating: 9/10 (yes, you read it correctly)
0 Comments