How about a film about the existential conundrum of religious faith?

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.

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

I can’t be the worst. What about that hotdog one?

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) (SPOILERS) It would have been a merciful release, had the title card “ The End ”, flashing on screen a little before the ninety-minute mark, not been a false dawn. True, I would still have been unable to swab the bloody dildoes fight from my mind, but at least Everything Everywhere All at Once would have been short. Indeed, by the actual end I was put in mind of a line spoken by co-star James Wong in one of his most indelible roles: “ Now this really pisses me off to no end ”. Or to put it another way, Everything Everywhere All at Once rubbed me up the wrong which way quite a lot of most of the time.

We’ve got the best ball and chain in the world. Your ass.

Wedlock (1991) (SPOILERS) The futuristic prison movie seemed possessed of a particular cachet around this time, quite possibly sparked by the grisly possibilities of hi-tech disincentives to escape. On that front, HBO TV movie Wedlock more than delivers its FX money shot. Elsewhere, it’s less sure of itself, rather fumbling when it exchanges prison tropes for fugitives-on-the-run ones.

Drank the red. Good for you.

Morbius (2022) (SPOILERS) Generic isn’t necessarily a slur. Not if, by implication, it’s suggestive of the kind of movie made twenty years ago, when the alternative is the kind of super-woke content Disney currently prioritises. Unfortunately, after a reasonable first hour, Morbius descends so resignedly into such unmoderated formula that you’re left with a too-clear image of Sony’s Spider-Verse when it lacks a larger-than-life performer (Tom Hardy, for example) at the centre of any given vehicle.

So, you’re telling me that NASA is going to kill the President of the United States with an earthquake?

Conspiracy Theory (1997) (SPOILERS) Mel Gibson’s official rehabilitation occurred with the announcement of 2016’s Oscar nominations, when Hacksaw Ridge garnered six nods, including Mel as director. Obviously, many refuse to be persuaded that there’s any legitimate atonement for the things someone says. They probably weren’t even convinced by Mel’s appearance in Daddy’s Home 2 , an act of abject obeisance if ever there was one. In other circles, though, Gibbo, or Mad Mel, is venerated as a saviour unsullied by the depraved Hollywood machine, one of the brave few who would not allow them to take his freedom. Or at least, his values. Of course, that’s frequently based on alleged comments he made, ones it’s highly likely he didn’t. But doesn’t that rather appeal to the premise of his 23-year-old star vehicle Conspiracy Theory , in which “ A good conspiracy theory is an unproveable one ”?

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

He’ll regret it to his dying day, if ever he lives that long.

The Quiet Man (1952) (SPOILERS) The John Wayne & John Ford film for those who don’t like John Wayne & John Ford films? The Quiet Man takes its cues from Ford’s earlier How Green Was My Valley in terms of, well less Anglophile and Hibernophile and Cambrophile nostalgia respectively for past times, climes and heritage, as Wayne’s pugilist returns to his family seat and stirs up a hot bed of emotions, not least with Maureen O’Hara’s red-headed hothead. The result is a very likeable movie, for all its inculcated Oirishness and studied eccentricity.

He doesn’t want to lead you. He just wants you to follow.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) (SPOILERS) The general failing of the prequel concept is a fairly self-evident one; it’s spurred by the desire to cash in, rather than to tell a story. This is why so few prequels, in any form, are worth the viewer/reader/listener’s time, in and of themselves. At best, they tend to be something of a well-rehearsed fait accompli. In the movie medium, even when there is material that withstands closer inspection (the Star Wars prequels; The Hobbit , if you like), the execution ends up botched. With Fantastic Beasts , there was never a whiff of such lofty purpose, and each subsequent sequel to the first prequel has succeeded only in drawing attention to its prosaic function: keeping franchise flag flying, even at half-mast. Hence Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore , belatedly arriving after twice the envisaged gap between instalments and course-correcting none of the problems present in The Crimes of Grindelwald .

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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