Josh Spiegel
When Sir Michael Caine prepared to play one of the most quintessentially English roles, he took it very seriously. “I’m going to play this [role] like I’m working with the Royal Shakespeare Company,” he reportedly explained to the director who would guide him as he portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1992 Disney film The Muppet Christmas Carol. The result is one of the high watermarks of Caine’s career and potentially the best big-screen Scrooge ever, because Caine was, like Scrooge, true to his word. He doesn’t go big, he doesn’t play down to the Muppets, and he doesn’t condescend to the young audience that grew up with his version of the Dickensian protagonist. But his low-key take is right for Dickens, yet not quite Muppet-y enough. Fortunately, the 1990s had another Disney film featuring the Muppets, which was also an adaptation of a literary classic, boasting a brilliant human performance. The film, turning 30 this week, is Muppet Treasure Island, and the performer is the gleefully nasty Tim Curry as Long John Silver, matching the manic Muppet energy to a T.
On the surface, these Disney adaptations of Dickens and Stevenson are similar. Both films feature Muppets occupying familiar roles, both have musical numbers, and both are anchored by British stars. But where Caine and his holiday film take things relatively seriously, Curry’s performance and the film in which it’s housed are a lot loopier, gleeful, and more in line with the anarchy that the Muppets represented in earlier films as well as in The Muppet Show. Although Muppet Treasure Island doesn’t break the fourth wall the same way that the first two Muppet movies did, it plays happily with our general awareness of this specific boys’ adventure, of a young man named Jim Hawkins (Kevin Bishop) who embarks on a nautical journey with a crew mostly comprised of pirates secretly led by Silver to claim long-lost treasure.
“A talking…parrot?” Long John says in his opening scene, amazed at the idea that his closest friend would be a chatty bird instead of a walking, talking lobster named Polly. Many of the tweaks that this family-friendly adaptation make to Silver are intended to accommodate the presence of the Muppets, but a good chunk of it falls on Curry himself. Unlike the late Charles Grodin in The Great Muppet Caper, Curry isn’t just playing a famous pop-culture villain – even those who haven’t read the real Treasure Island know that the peg-legged pirate is bad news. Curry isn’t playing the role lightly or in a low-key fashion; he’s all in.
When Silver finally outs himself to Jim as the man orchestrating a mutiny to reclaim stolen gold, Curry’s mouth quivers as if he’s literally chewing the scenery when the camera’s not on him. And unlike both Grodin and Caine, Curry is able to utilize his own experience on stage and in the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show in what he huffily notes is “My only number,” AKA “A Professional Pirate.” The song itself is…fine (although this writer will fiercely argue that the 1996 film is the second-best Muppet movie, its songs are generally OK without being terribly memorable or hummable). But Curry’s performance elevates the sequence so much, with his blazing eyes, louchely leering face, and joyous energy. The same is true of how Jim and Long John have their falling out; he’s unwavering about desiring the treasure, but when he bids Jim adieu, Curry commits to the heartache Long John feels at having failed his surrogate son.
Importantly, Tim Curry is doing what Michael Caine did: not playing down to the audience, nor condescending to the fact that he’s interacting primarily with Muppets. Few actors could sell Long John Silver’s charm the way Curry does, especially in this warped and over-the-top take where the feared pirate had a love affair with Benjamina Gunn (Miss Piggy, natch) years ago. Though some of the other human actors playing pirates are perhaps going a bit too big in their background work (as in the show-stopping “Cabin Fever,” a song in which Curry is notably absent), he never loses sight of his own North Star.
To act against the Muppets is a career highlight for so many acting luminaries, whether it’s in a cameo, hosting The Muppet Show, or taking on a primary antagonistic role of sorts as Tim Curry did in Muppet Treasure Island. The blend of holiday magic and Muppet charm has perhaps lifted Michael Caine’s work in The Muppet Christmas Carol highly in some Millennials’ estimation. But Curry, as stealthy and sly as ever, comfortably walks away with this film, full of glee and brio in every moment, seeming to delight in each syllable he utters and stealing the show even if his character never does end up stealing the gold he was always after.
“Muppet Treasure Island” is streaming on Disney+.
