Movies: Muppets Most Wanted

It wasn't fun.

That's really the bottom line for me. It had okay musical numbers, but on the whole . . . It wasn't fun. It lacked inspiration. And tried to make up for that lack with a bunch of cameos.

The plot itself was pretty rote. Hot off the latest reboot (The Muppets, which was a fun movie), Kermit & Co. seek to stay relevant. They're hit up by Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais), who offers to manage a world tour for them. Kermit has misgivings but succumbs to peer pressure and agrees. But of course Dominic is actually working with Constantine, "the World's Most Dangerous Frog." And Constantine has just escaped from a Russian gulag. Except for a mole on Constantine's cheek, Kermit and Constantine look exactly alike. So of course Kermit gets picked up as the escaped convict and . . .

Hilarity presumably ensues, but not really.

Ty Burrell does a stint as a French Interpol agent, and Tina Fey turns up as Nadya, one of the guards of the gulag. But somehow Muppets Most Wanted ends up being less than the sum of its parts. It relies almost too much on the surprise guests, some playing themselves (Christoph Waltz, Celine Dion, Salma Hayek, Danny Trejo) and others popping up in various other roles (James McAvoy, Ray Liotta, Tom Hiddleston, Josh Groban). Is a walk-on in a Muppet movie the latest "it" thing to do? Maybe, but the long list of stars did the film no favors.

Truly, there was no joy in the story. In a technical sense, it ticked all the boxes, but somehow came out flat and uninteresting. Overprocessed. The best part was watching Kermit direct the gulag's annual talent show. If the whole film had been that, it would have been a lot better.