They are back! Disney’s cash-cow, The Muppets, have returned for their eighth movie, Muppets Most Wanted, and yes, the kids love it! It’s also a safe guarantee that every single person who sits down to watch this will see at least one or two things that make them laugh because so many jokes will go straight over the kids heads!
I took my nieces to a preview screening of it with a million other kids to watch The Muppets in yet another sequel. What I love is that Disney’s Muppet crew are fully aware of the fact that everyone will complain about another sequel, so naturally, they make fun of it!
The film starts with a fabulous glittering show-stopping performance with all The Muppets singing and dancing about Hollywood’s obsession with sequels. You cannot help but laugh because it is so true: when we see a fantastic movie, we fall in love with the characters and want to see them again. People criticise it for being another sequel but the fact is, Muppet sequels work! Kids come and laugh at The Muppets’ many ridiculous capers but then they grow up and move on to older movies. This makes way for fresh kids to come and enjoyThe Muppets’ trials and tribulations!
James Bobin (who also co-created Flight of the Concords) has returned to direct the latest Muppet shenanigans. Bobin also reunited with his co-writer from the previous film, The Muppets (2011), Nicolas Stoller to write the screenplay for Muppets Most Wanted.
This time, we see the arrival of Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais) who persuades The Muppets to take their show-stopping act abroad. He packs them onto an old train to travel throughout Hollywood, Berlin, Siberia, Spain and London with an obsession to steal the Crown Jewels. (How the same train travels overseas I’ll never know but, hey, it’s The Muppets!). Dominic Badguy needs an accomplice so he sneaks in a Kermit lookalike, “Constantine” (with a bad Russian accent), and ships off the real Kermit to a Siberian Gulag.
This Gulag is controlled by the hysterical Tina Fey as the top prison guard Nadja. We see another attempt at a Russian accent and Nadja’s obsession for Broadway show tunes. She gets Kermit (who they all believe is evil Constantine!) to help her organise a prison musical revue starring other prisoners played by Sean Combs, Zac Galifinakis and Ray Liotta, (It is funny even thinking of how ridiculous it is!)
There is a variety of genres here: we see a prison heist, a love story, an international extravaganza and the involvement of Interpol.
To give you more of a hint of the hilarity you will experience, we see Miss Piggy looking very “Paris Hilton” with her little white dog! And remember how Kermit can never commit to Miss Piggy? Well, Constantine proposes, so in this film we see her getting organised with a gown by Vivienne Westwood (or “Vivie” as Piggy likes to call her!) made out of recycled plastic! Celine Dion is her fairy godmother…are you getting the picture?!
One thing I noticed with a lot of the jokes is they are never offensive and a lot of them have been written to go WAY over the kids’ heads! The kids laugh, but they don’t know what they’re laughing at. These jokes give us older crew something to laugh about!
Reviewed by Kirstey Whicker
Rating out of 10: 8
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