Wolff rating: FAIR
Plot summary: Muppets recreate the classic Robert Louis Stevenson pirate novel in their own, ah, idiom.
Biased, pithy comments: I actually had fun watching this movie, snorting aloud at the puns and a few silly moments. I'm even a Muppet fan, including having seen just about every Muppet Show and Muppets Tonight ever produced (albeit some of them when I was very young). However, except for the Muppet Movie, it's hard for the Muppets to sustain their attention on any one subject. Stevenson's novel, which is classic in every sense of the word (including defining the pirate story as well as the young-boy-adventure genre), doesn't really need talking rats and a sex change for the castaway. The music is hit-and-then-miss (the pop single near the end is a mistake, but the music at the beginning is fantastic), but what brings this reviewer's rating down is the total abandonment of the story. Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver have a very complicated relationship in the book, which is one of the ways the book has endured so many years. In this film, it's tossed aside except for a few awkward scenes with Curry and Bishop faking British accents to one another. So, good Muppet stuff, a terrible rendition of the book. Your mileage (depending on your Muppet-fannishness and your devotion to pirate novels) may vary.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Tim Curry, Keniv Bishop, Billy Connolly, and the entire Muppet cast (Brian Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire).
Directed by: Brian Henson