The Muppets: Most Wanted, G
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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
It was nostalgia that brought the Muppets back to the screen three years ago for their first film since 1999.
Writer-director James Bobin and his collaborators are of the generation who cherish memories of Jim Henson's creations in their Sesame Street days.
Now the same team is back and everybody is coming to the party.
The new Muppets movie has a full roster of guest stars ready to sacrifice their vanity to the cause.
Christoph Waltz is swept up in an arrhythmic waltz by one of the biggest and fluffiest members of the cast, Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett, Sean Combs and Zach Galifianakis pop up among the extras and a shaken-looking Salma Hayek becomes embroiled in one of Gonzo the Great's most energetic fiascos.
Then there are those who have signed on for the duration.
Ricky Gervais plays the bad guy, who's called Dominic Badguy in case anybody should be conned into believing that he's been cast against type, and Tina Fey is a guard in a Siberian gulag.
As you've probably guessed by now, this Muppets movie is on an epic scale.
The team goes on a world tour and a tramp across the Russian steppes is only a small part of the itinerary.
Also on the agenda is a case of identity theft and a plot to steal England's Crown Jewels.
Naturally, Badguy is behind it all.
You could never accuse Gervais of failing to deliver when a little wickedness is required.
He has talked the Muppets into going on a world tour and letting him manage it.
Kermit (voiced by Steve Whitmire) is sceptical but Badguy soon takes care of him.
In Berlin, Kermit is kidnapped and spirited away to the gulag after being mistaken for his lookalike, Constantine (Matt Vogel), the world's most dangerous frog, who also happens to be Badguy's partner in crime.
But it's not all bad news.
Kermit does get the chance to help Fey's Nadya, the guard, stage the annual gulag revue.
There are about 20 songs and fans may be comforted to know Miss Piggy's voice hasn't improved a bit.
In the world of the Muppets, nothing much changes and Bobin works hard to make it stay that way.
The budget has been bumped up another $9 million this time to $54 million and several movie genres are spoofed along the way.
As well, a lot of effort has gone into giving it the look and feel of a '60s heist movie.
Sadly it had a disappointing opening at the US box office.
It deserves better.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Review by Jake Wilson
James Bobin's maudlin 2011 "reboot" of the Muppets was essentially a vanity project for its capering co-star Jason Segel, but it did its job of bringing Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear and their colourful, occasionally violent friends back into the spotlight.
This sequel, again directed by Bobin and co-written by Nicholas Stoller, marks a definite improvement on its predecessor, with relatively little sentiment and plenty of songs, explosions, wisecracks, celebrity cameos and all-round buffoonery.
The plot dispatches the Muppets on a tour of Europe, happily leaving Segel's character behind.
In his place, we get Ricky Gervais as the conniving manager Dominic Badguy (pronounced "Badgee"), who is plotting to replace Kermit with an evil double as part of his plan to steal the Crown Jewels.
Gervais, of course, is perfect for the role.
Like Charles Grodin in The Great Muppet Caper, he exudes oily self-absorption from every pore, making it perfectly plausible he wouldn't notice or care that his companions aren't flesh and blood.
Getting the Muppets right is harder than it looks – the trick is to combine the maximum of zaniness with the minimum of cynicism – and inevitably there are moments when Muppets Most Wanted misses the mark.
Running about 20 minutes longer than its obvious model The Great Muppet Caper, the film occasionally gets bogged down in its crime plot, as if Bobin and Stoller had set out to make the "dark middle chapter" of an envisaged Muppet trilogy.
The lighting can be a bit heavily mock-sinister, and perhaps it wasn't the greatest idea to have Kermit spend more than half the film in a Russian gulag (though Tina Fey is delightful as a stern yet soft-hearted guard).
In other, less tangible ways the film seems at odds with the ethos of the late Jim Henson, the Muppets' beloved creator.
The plot has a moralistic streak, emphasising the need for artistic discipline – where the original Muppets, at their best, were always about celebrating chaos.
A running joke about short French working hours feels equally out of place, and will certainly be lost on the kids.
The fact is that Henson, a lifelong artistic innovator, never lost his appreciation for non-conformity, whereas Bobin and Stoller, for all their resourcefulness, are company men at heart.
Yet the Muppets have a life of their own, and it's good to see them live on.