In celebration of the new Muppet TV-Show on ABC, I decided to look back at the latest entry in the franchise on the big screen. In 2011 a Muppet “reboot” came out simply titled ‘The Muppets’. It was a critical and commercial success receiving a 96% rating on rottentomatoes and grossed a little over $165 million at the worldwide box office so naturally a sequel was immediately in the works with the director James Bobin replacing Jason Segel as a co-writer next to Nicholas Stoller who also wrote the previous installment. Together they brought us 'Muppets Most Wanted'.
With a 79% rating on rottentomatoes and 61/100 rating on MetaCritic it is safe to say that this is not as highly acclaimed as the previous movie but that is not something we should have expected and it is not like this film was poorly received like it very well could have been. ‘Muppets Most Wanted’ is a very typical Muppet movie with all the fourth wall gags and celebrity cameos you can chew and while there is definitely a lot of both – there may actually be a bit too many which could be a bit distracting and take you out of the story from time to time. This is especially noticeable after coming off of something like ‘The Muppets’ which a very emotional and cinematic movie about the characters trying to return into this world that pretty much forgot they even existed just to see if they could do it again. However despite the celebrity cameos being turned up to 11 – there was never a moment were I went “oh no, not again!” so the criticism is split down the middle.
All the new characters are great additions to the film, with Tina Fey as Nadya being a standout. She is a guard at a Russian GULAG prison who is coincidentally a big fan of Kermit and also likes to sing so naturally when Kermit is mistaken to be Constantine and is thrown into this prison – she does not believe it is actually him which leads to lots of great scenes between the two later on. My biggest problem with Nadya being a huge fan is that it does not alter the story in any big way and it does not build up to anything so there is really no reason to have it in the film which is a shame because there were definitely things they could have done with it. The actual Constantine character is kind of fun (and very CG sometimes), he is a serviceable villain with a lot of the typical clichéd villain tropes (which is on purpose). His opening scene is one of the highlights of the entire movie and for the most part he probably made me laugh more than any others. The weakest of the new characters however is Ricky Gervais as Dominic Badguy, this does not necessarily mean he is a bad character – he just does not really stand out as much as the other two because of the way he is written. Do not get me wrong, Ricky Gervais is a good actor and a great comedian but he did not get much to work with here as none of his lines were especially funny and the character was always overshadowed by being number two (there is even a song in the film about that).

All right I am going to stop comparing this film to ‘The Muppets’ now, let us talk about more positive things about THIS film to wrap it up. The directing is good, James Bobin has done a great job with both of these movies and I would be more than happy if he were to ever direct an episode of the Muppet TV-Show. The music is great like I said, the movie balances between Muppet characters and human characters very well in my humble opinion (I say that because I have ve seen some criticism about how it mostly focuses on the humans) and the story is formulaic and basic but it kinda works to serve the movie with enough fourth wall gags. It is a good movie but it pales in comparison to the last one and it is rather forgettable.
- Lucas
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