Sunday, April 13, 2014

Movie Review: Muppets Most Wanted


It's time to play the music; it's time to light the lights!

Any sequel movie that actually contains a song entitled "We're Doing A Sequel!" is already miles ahead of the competition.  Add Kermit, Miss Piggy, all the Muppet crew, and a dizzying array of cameos, and you have an entertaining evening at the movies.

The Muppets are back, and this time they're going on a world tour managed by Ricky Gervais!  The complication soon takes shape, though: Constantine, a criminal mastermind of a frog, fools everyone into thinking he's Kermit and Kermit him.  Hijinks and mistaken identities ensue: the real Kermit winds up in a gulag (with Tina Fey as a prison guard!) while Constantine takes the oblivious Muppets all over Europe as part of a nefarious scheme.

At every step of the way, the flick teases you with the parade of now-you-see-them-now-you-don't, "wait-was-that-?" cameos.  (Oh, and La Parisienne and other Flight of the Conchords fans: Jemaine Clement is in this, but he looks completely different from the Jemaine in your head!  Bret McKenzie wrote the songs for the flick but doesn't appear. Aw.)  There are moments when cameo-spotting turns out to be a more diverting enterprise than the actual plot of the movie, which brings to the grade.

Mad Minerva gives Muppets Most Wanted a grade of B.  The plot gets a little bogged down, despite all the cameos you start to miss Jason Segel and Amy Adams from the 2011 Muppets, a few jokes flop, and Ricky Gervais just isn't that funny (but then again who is next to the Muppets?).  Still, any flick that gives me Kermit and Miss Piggy (and cameos of those beautiful lads James McAvoy and Tom Hiddleston) will get at least a little love from me.  (For the guys: Two words.  Salma. Hayek.)  In addition: brownie points for Princess Beatrice's fugly hat from William and Kate's wedding actually showing up in a crowd scene!

RottenTomatoes gives Muppets Most Wanted the Fresh rating of 79%.

Muppets Most Wanted runs 107 minutes and is rated PG for mild action.

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