Muppets Most Wanted
(2014)
It’s a funny kind of a way to express one’s love for a
property and its characters; spending a disproportionate amount of time on
wholly new ones. True, a series shouldn’t stay still, or rest on its laurels,
but if the innovation lacks any of the flair and that made it so good in the
first place it would be better not to bother. Acknowledging this, as Muppets Most Wanted sort of does several
times, can only do so much to affirm the self-referential wit for which the
series is famous; it’s only clever to say you’re crappy if you’re actually not.
This seventh (theatrical) sequel undoubtedly has its moments, but in many
respects it perpetuates the problems of its predecessor rather than remedying
them.
Writer-director James Bobin (and co-writer Nicholas Stoller)
they immediately face up to the task in hand with the We’re Doing a Sequel song (“It
looks like they’ve ordered a sequel, and everybody knows that the sequel’s not
quite as good”). But the essential starting point in counteracting this would
have been to get rid of Walter, introduced via the last picture’s banal conceit
of a character that wanted to join the Muppets. Bobin and Stoller probably
didn’t want to admit they got it wrong, so again this dullest of felt fellows
eats up screen time that should have been reserved for the many more vibrant players
in the Muppet-verse. And again, at one point they very nearly acknowledge that
they spent a whole movie getting him to join up, “Maybe even at the expense of other long-standing beloved Muppets”,
as Rizzo opines (exit scene right with Robin).
That Walter is ever-present suggests bloody-mindedness on
the parts of Bobin and Stoller, however. The plot they come up with this time
isn’t necessarily so bad, except we’ve already had The Great Mupper Caper; criminals hijack the Muppet European Tour in
order to perpetrate a series of heists. This fosters a brace of cameos and
different destinations. Unfortunately, both new characters (human and muppet)
fail to capture the lunacy of the series at its best.
Ricky Gervais is perhaps
the most irritating comedy actor on the planet, so his smug mug nuzzling up to
the Muppets is off-putting in the extreme. He plays tour manager Dominic
Badguy, lackey of arch criminal Constantine. The latter, a ringer for Kermit
(aside from a prominent mole), escapes from a Siberian gulag and swaps places
with the green Muppet. Who finds it’s not easy being incarcerated. It might have been a better bet to go with the
Swedish Chef’s suggestion for the sequel (“How
about a film about the existential conundrum of religious faith?”)
Much play is made of how no one notices Kermit’s
replacement, despite a completely incongruous accent, and such obvious
repetitions are Muppet bread-and-butter. But the evil frog fizzles as a character
so his interaction with the other Muppets is a one-joke affair that isn’t
especially amusing. Kermit fares better in the gulag, with a game Tina Fey as
the warden besotted with him and a selection of amusing inmates. There’s Danny
Trejo (as Danny Trejo, which given that he really has been inside is
particularly on-the-nose) singing (Bret McKenzie’s songs are yet again one of
the highlights, although the best track is a cover of Working in a Coal Mine, and fellow Conchord Jermaine Clement
perfectly fits into the Muppet world as the Prison King) and Ray Liotta delivery
some classic Liotta deadpan.
By far the superior subplot, which hits the nail on the head
in offering up Muppet-human interplay at its best, is Sam the Eagle’s CIA agent
teaming up Ty Burrell’s Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon. Burrell brings
just the right measure of comedic excess (with an appropriately outrageous
accent) while stuffy Sam is the straightmuppet.
Travelling around in a very tiny car, and indulging running through a series of
French stereotypes (Napoleon’s lunch hour lasts six hours) there’s an
irresistible balance between not such great sense (“The comedian bear is the Lemur! That is brilliant!”) and sheer
idiocy (“The comedian bear is planning on
stealing the Tower of London!”)
Cameos include Tom Hiddleston as The Great Escapo, Celine
Dion duetting with Miss Piggy, Christopher Waltz as himself , Usher as an usher
(“What kind of an usher are you?”)
and Zach Galifianakis as a wedding guest (“Well,
this is the best Muppet wedding ever!”). There are also some fine gags
along the way; Fozzie posing as a bear skin rug, Kermit and Constantine doing
the Groucho Marx mirror routine, babies stealing the crown jewels (“Who would suspect babies of stealing the
crown jewels. Look at their sweet faces!”), flamingos singing the Macarena,
and Fozzie’s response to the news that Badguy has been bribing journalists to
write great reviews (“Oh, why didn’t we
ever think of that?”)
Rowlf: (Reading
the German sign) Die Muppets?
Waldorf: I can’t believe the reviews are out so
early.
Statler: Maybe that’s the suggestion box.
Muppet movies are never easy to pull off; their magic is best
engineered in TV sketch format, or playing off a recognisable story (Christmas Carol and Treasure Island both work reasonably well). Statler and Waldorf
barely get a look in, the same with Gonzo. There’s also an unconvincing moral
about cuddly values (“We’re a family”).
Muppets Most Wanted is well shot,
I’ll give it that, but it’s a “That’ll do” affair, much the way Fierce Creatures wasn’t a worthy re-assemblage
of the Wanda team. The new characters
are duff (they would have been better off featuring ‘80s Robot prominently
instead of Walter, if they had to bring
back a new character, but he’s consigned to extra status) and the plot is
determinedly unadventurous.
Most Wanted
made less than half as much money as its predecessor, which in part suggests The Muppets itself wasn’t up to scratch
(nostalgia sold tickets as much as anything) but it’s also indicative of word
of mouth. I can’t lay all the blame Gervais, although he’s a blight on any
motion picture; Stoller and Bobin’s contributions are persistently patchy. If
the rest of the picture were as inspired as the Sam/Burrell scenes, though, this
would have been top tier Muppet moviedom.
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