MUPPETS MOST WANTED

I’m going to tell you something and you must promise not to immediately go ‘what?’ I think 2011’s Muppet comeback is the best romantic film of the last decade. Yes, the one with Amy Adams and Jason Segel – and a load of Muppets. I promise you, I am an adult, and I haven’t taken a blow to the head. Like Bruce Forsyth, The Muppets have reached the stage where they’ve entertained grandparents and their grandchildren, although arguably with more across-the-board approval.

What’s not to like about Muppets? Like Pixar, they have crossed the border from kidsonly to nostalgic devotion, and it helped that The Muppets, their first film in 12 years, was brilliant. It had cred from cameos and Bret McKenzie of TV’s Flight Of The Conchords writing the songs and picking up an Oscar along the way, and heart, humour and affection burst out of every second. My friends Sam and Katherine had their wedding dance to Life’s A Happy Song.

The sequel takes the last film’s ingredients and shakes them up for a return in which Ricky Gervais’s villainous tour manager Dominic Badguy – ‘It’s pronounced Badjee, it’s French’ – and Kermit the Frog lookalike Constantine, plot to oust Kermit and use The Muppets as a screen for a host of ambitious robberies. From an opening number gently mocking the idea of sequels, the stage is set for a bigger, starrier, ritzier film, and this has its pros and cons.

Much time is given to Gervais, and to 30 Rock’s Tina Fey as the head of the Siberian gulag where Kermit is sent, once mistaken for Constantine. You can’t fault any time spent with Fey, who is just wonderful – the gulag plays host to one of the most ridiculous talent shows not currently airing on British television – but I’d still rather have more Muppets.


Kermit’s eternal paramour, Miss Piggy, gets a neat storyline that addresses the couple’s everlasting engagement, as well as a diva duet that really deserves more wind machines and 10 minutes to do it justice. And the officious Sam the Eagle gets a double act of his own, with Modern Family’s wonderful Ty Burrell playing an outrageous French agent, complete with an outrrrrageous French accent.

However, the general Muppet horde is relegated to the background and this is a shame. However good the A-list cameos are (and they are largely very good) and however nice it is to see our own dear Tower of London get a moment in the spotlight, there’s too much going on to focus on the team, and as a result, the film sometimes feels flat. If you’ve watched the trailer there’s further disappointment as you’ll already have seen the best gags – but Muppets Most Wanted still gives plenty of joy along the way.