Movie review: Crime and puppets in ‘Muppets Most Wanted’

Will the real Kermit the Frog please stand up?

There’s a criminal who’s been robbing the world’s most famous treasures and he looks exactly like the head of the Muppets company. In fact, he may have already infiltrated the popular theater group with the help of old performance tapes and green face paint.

This is the kind of docile material that sequels are made of. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of puppet fun and mayhem to be had that’s the stock-in-trade comedy of the Henson Muppets, but there’s a reason this one’s not quite as good as the rebooted original headlined by Jason Segel and Amy Adams.

First, though, we get started exactly where the last movie ended. After the credits roll, Kermit and Co decide to embark on a world tour to capitalize on their movie’s success. It’s a good move, but the novelty performance landscape has changed so much that they need someone to show them the managerial ropes of how it’s done in the post-noughties.  

Enter Dominic Badguy (a slimmed down Ricky Gervais) – who quickly corrects Fozzie when he

mispronounces his name (“It’s French!”). Badguy is a real bad guy, of course, and unknown to the Muppets they’ve taken in the second in command of the world’s most dangerous frog: Constantine.

The amphibian Russian criminal has recently just escaped form a Siberian gulag and he slowly enacts his plan to take over the Muppets and rob the treasures of Europe wherever they perform. He does this by first switching places with Kermit (with the help of a mole Krazy Glued to the good frog’s face), then getting a pass on his funny Slavic accent with Badguy’s help.   

Soon, Kermit is captured by authorities and jailed at the same gulag run by Nadja (Tina Fey). This leaves Constantine free to impersonate Kermit and a rein of the European tour – the cover for his scheme. Said tour takes the entire Muppets gang into the Old World, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe’s most exciting venues like Berlin, Madrid, Dublin and London. As the tour goes on only Animal, Walter, and Fozzie Bear get an inkling that something’s off with their green leader. But will there be enough time left when they figure it out?  

Sure, there’s a lot of hilarty and fun moments, but there’s never a sense of urgency or a real sense of stake in this story, unlike the first, where the Muppets were fighting against obsolescence in a world that’s forgotten them. After all the villains and tribulations that they’ve gone through, I never really felt that Constantine – as much of a criminal genius that he is – was a threat to their way of life.  
 
Ty Burrell (“Modern Family”), as French Interpol inspector Jean Pierre Napoleon, mines comedy gold along side CIA agent Sam the Eagle as they try to outdo each other while seeming to work in concert to try and solve the case of the thefts (see the badge-off scene). Also, Tina Fey shines as Nadya the Gulag warden, especially in her production number introducing Kermit to the prison’s, ahem, amenities. A close second is the prison’s variety musical revue where you can see Danny Trejo and Ray Liotta hamming it up like the best cabaret and theater performers on Broadway. Seeing Mr. Trejo frolic and be all wakka-wakka is something I will remember for a few months to come. The uncanny drollness of these roles enacted in the Muppets world is what makes half of the puppet act stick, powering much of why people have loved them all these years.

Of course, there are so many celebrity cameos your eyes will pop out like Kermit’s. Watch out for Christoph Waltz, Saoirse Ronan, Salma Hayek, P. Diddy, James MacAvoy, Josh Groban...and Celine Dion, complete with soaring power ballad scene, I kid you not.

Miss Piggy steals the show quite a few times, especially on her powerfully bombastic number with Miss Dion. “Miss Piggy is wonderful,” said Celine Dion in the media notes for the OST. “She’s so charming and sensitive and filled with passion. She has a big heart and it was wonderful to sing with her.” To which Miss Piggy replied: “I was magnifique! With a little help from moi, I think Celine may have a big future in singing.”

Celebs galore are good, but the real stars here are the Muppets and you’ll have fun spotting even the obscure ones like Gene and Big Mean Karl. Music supervisor Bret McKenzie (of “Flight of the Conchords” fame) brings the marriage of men and puppets to workable, effective life with novelty musical numbers, including a very tasty “Interrogation Song” sung by Napoleon and Sam the Eagle as they try to break the Muppets’ will, and the prison revue’s “The Big House” where you must listen to Josh Groban’s added soaring vocals to Tina Fey’s penal brutality with a feminine touch (baboushka!).

The guy who proves, again, that he’s a manly muppet is Walter as he joins Fozzy and Animal on a mission to rescue Kermit from the clutches of the Gulag. It’s really where the film picks up in momentum and stops being just a Muppets showcase of talent (watch out for the sumptuous costumes for their Madrid performance, where the opening theme is sung wholly in Spanish), where everything else previous to that is just a lot of smoke and mirrors and Gonzo’s indoor running-of-the-bulls.

Having said all that, it’s a good addition to the Muppets cannon and a good lesson on loyalty and friendship for the kids to dig. Face it, “The Muppets” movie was a hard act to follow. We must not blame them for wanting to follow it up and said sequel suffering the sophomore slump.

Muppet completists (me among them) will put this on their shelves anyway, but if you’re looking for the groundbreaking emotional pay off of the 2011 reboot you’re better off playing with the penguins, Danny Trejo, and Swedish Chef in the alley playing Smash-the-Pumpkin and singing “Mahna Mahna.” — VC, GMA News  

“Muppets Most Wanted” is now showing exclusively at Ayala Malls.