Home Video Picks & Passes 09.07.14

Muppets Most Wanted (2014) PICK

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) PICK

After The Lego Movie, the year’s best family film to date is surely Muppets Most Wanted.

“We’re doing a sequel,” the Muppets sing in a self-aware opening number that frankly admits that “the sequel’s never quite as good.” Well, it’s true. Going for this sequel is the same silly charm and sense of innocent fun as the 2011 film. But the emotional undercurrents of nostalgia, hero worship and so forth are gone, with nothing to replace them.

Muppets Most Wanted clearly wants to be the new Great Muppet Caper, but, in the secret bad-guy role, Ricky Gervais is no Charles Grodin. Replacing Kermit with a lookalike criminal mastermind is funny, though, after the “Moopets,” the rebooted franchise may be getting fixated on the idea of Muppet substitutes. Never mind. Muppets Most Wanted is pleasant, cheerful, musical fun, and, these days, that’s good enough. 

Also new on home video is one of the year’s better action movies, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the first film to actually capture the spirit of the web-slinger. 

Watching this film, it’s a joy to suddenly see Spider-Man acting like Spider-Man — wisecracking, showboating and playing to the crowd — and to realize just how much previous films had missed all this. This Spider-Man doesn’t just swing in and out saving generic New Yorkers; he connects with individuals, taking the time to catch their names. He has a relationship with the whole city. There’s an element of performance art in his persona; he might be the first big-screen superhero who gets that being a public hero, from a rock star to the pope, involves playing a role.

Unfortunately, one New Yorker caught up in Spidey’s celebrity, Jamie Foxx’s Max Dillon, is a case of borderline personality disorder, who winds up morphing into the dangerous Electro.

Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy is a strong, smart heroine who, like Sally Field’s Aunt May, has a life outside her relationship with Peter. Stone is easily the best big-screen superhero love interest since Gwyneth Paltrow — fittingly, since Garfield’s web-slinger has become the most charismatic superhero since Robert Downey Jr.

Caveat Spectator: The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Much intense comic-book violence and some frightening scenes; a number of fatalities; some cursing. Teens and up. Muppets Most Wanted: Slapstick action. Fine family viewing.