Genre:
Crime, Adventure, Comedy
Distributor:
Disney Pictures
Rating: PG
Release Date:
28th March 2014 (UK)
Director:
James Bobin
Cast:
Kermit, Miss Piggy, Ricky Gervais,Ty Burell, Tina Fey, Walter
There are times when you can't help thinking that you can have too much of a good thing. Unfortunately this might just be the case with the Muppets, whose new film Muppets Most Wanted (2014) is a good example of an idea fast running out of steam. The latest vehicle to star the irrepressible puppet gang - along with Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, and Ty Burrell, and directed by James Bobin, who also co-wrote the film with Nicholas Stoller - is really just more of what they've done countless times before (and better) - simply in different locations and with new support.
Led by the doughty Kermit the Frog and irrepressible Miss Piggy, the Muppets have embarked on a world tour under the guidance of their new manager Dominic Badguy (Gervais). However there is more to Dominic than meets the eye, as he is the henchman for Constantine the world's greatest criminal (who is the spitten image of Kermit). Together Constantine and Dominic plan to steal the Crown Jewels, and they are intent on fooling the Muppet's into unwittingly aiding them in their audacious plot.
The Muppets built a successful career from a television show during the 1970s. With some of the characters, including Kermit, becoming popular after appearing on the hit American children's programme Sesame Street, it was only a matter of time before they got their own series. Taking the form of a variety show where the Muppets themselves were the stars, it wasn't long before the biggest show-business personalities of the day were queuing up to appear alongside the puppets.
After the popularity of the show began to wane it seemed logical that the next step would be for its stalwart performers to hit the big screen. However even here such outings followed the tried and tested formula with the group of friends trying to make it big in the movies as in The Muppet Movie (1979) or put on a Broadway show in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984). When occasionally they tried something different the result usually took a pantomime'esque approach as was seen in The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) and Muppet Treasure Island (1996). Even here though, the films were reminiscent of the television shows as they often featured big names like Michael Caine, Tim Curry and Jennifer Saunders in central roles.
Which brings us bang up to date. After a hiatus of several years the gang returned with the straightforwardly entitled The Muppets (2011). Maybe it was the fact that the film introduced the Muppet characters to a whole new generation of children - or it was simply a nostalgia trip for their accompanying parents. Whatever the reason audiences loved the way it combined the 'putting on a show' premise of the original series with appearances by top Hollywood stars Amy Adams and Jason Segel, and the film proved a hit.
So in the best radiation of Hollywood, Disney (who now own the rights to the show), have seen fit to do it again with Muppets Most Wanted. The problem, as mentioned earlier, is that each outing is now becoming, to a greater or lesser degree, a rehash of what went before. The only things to have really changed this time are the locations. America has been traded for a whistle-stop train ride around the capitals of the world, that consist largely of European cities likely chosen more for the ability of the scriptwriters to derive jokes and potentially hilarious situations from them than for any real plot value.
The jokes admittedly are funny - the Muppets simply have to open their mouths and you're laughing, whilst the main cast of Gervais, Fey and Burrell are the perfect foils for their puppet co-stars. Even the storyline of a plot to steal the Crown Jewels - though really only there it would seem to bring together one song and dance number with the next - is reasonably diverting and inventive. However put all this aside and it boils down to the fact that, unfortunately, there seems little of originality or verve in the overall production. Even the endless array of cameo performances - from Tony Bennet and Hugh Bonneville to a wonderfully kitsch duet performed by Miss Piggy and Céline Dion as they desperately try to out-diva each-other - begin to loose their sheen with so many top names appearing during the one hour forty seven minute running time that the viewer soon looses track.
When analysed there is really little more to say about what pretty much amounts to a series of incidents there merely to connect one onscreen vignette with the next. At the film's London press conference Kermit is quoted as saying that he thinks the next film (if there is one) could be called 'Muppets Well Rested'. Going by this latest outing a well earned rest might be just what's required.
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