Muppets Most Wanted Review: A Fun Family Movie Everyone Will Love!

Muppets Most Wanted premiered this month and the movie adds to the long tradition of family entertainment produced by the Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and all the rest of the gang.

Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell and Tina Fey are on hand as the human foils of the Muppets, who become involved in an international crime caper aimed at committing the greatest heist in the history of the world.

If you or your children love the Muppets then you will be very satisfied with this movie. It's a great way to spend a few hours with your whole family.

The main villain in this movie is Constantine, the world's most dangerous frog, who escapes from a Siberian camp at the beginning of the movie. Because he is the mirror image of Kermit, he plans to impersonate the leader of the Muppets in a scheme that will lead to the theft of the crown jewels.

His accomplice is Ricky Gervais, who persuades the Muppets to hire him to arrange a world tour for their show. Gervais's name is Dominic Badguy, but he explains that ''Badguy" is French for "Good Man.'' Yes, it's a typical joke for a Muppet movie but most of the kids laughed.

Constantine replaces Kermit for the tour, and while the Muppets perform in Berlin, Madrid and Dublin the evil frog and Ricky Gervais commit burglaries. The burglaries are all part of the advance steps needed to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London, where Constantine has arranged to marry Miss Piggy!

Kermit, meanwhile, has been mistaken for Constantine and returned to Siberia to serve out his evil counterpart's sentence. Needless to say, Tina Fey as the prison camp's commander falls for Kermit (he is the leading man, uh, frog, after all!).

Animal, Fozzie Bear and a newer Muppet named Walter figure out that Constantine is impersonating the real Kermit and travel to Siberia to break Kermit out of the prison camp.

The movie heads to its conclusion with Kermit and his friends racing to London to thwart the theft of the crown jewels and prevent Constantine from marring Miss Piggy.

I don't want to spoil the ending, but I don't think anybody would be surprised to find out that all comes out well in the end! It's a very pleasant adventure, and many of the Muppets do get a small scene or appearance to appease all the fans. I'm sure this will be a hit movie and will lead to another sequel in a few years.

The Human Stars Generally Hold Their Own

Ricky Gervais is a talented comedian who plays it just straight enough that he actually engenders some sympathy when Constantine continually reminds him of his second-tier status as a villain. The two even sing a duet called "I'm Number One," in which the evil frog heaps put-down after put-down on his underling. At the end of the movie Gervais has a sight gag dressed in costume that is obviously meant to be a big laugh but I just thought it was silly.

Tina Fey has a couple of fun scenes, and she makes wearing a Russian uniform look quite attractive. Her early attempt at singing is amusingly cringe-worthy, and the final gag in the movie is at her expense (and it's a good one!)

Ty Burrell, from the TV series Modern Family, plays an Interpol agent who has one funny scene with Muppet Sam Eagle as they try to one-up each other with larger and larger badges, but otherwise isn't much of a factor.

And, of course, this movie continues the tradition that started in the very first film, The Muppet Movie, of having many stars appearing in cameos. Some are so fleeting they are barely noticeable, while others are more like supporting parts. The stars appearing including Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett, Ray Liotta, Usher, Celine Dion, Salma Hayek, Stanley Tucci and Sean "Diddy" Combs.

The Muppets 2011 was such a hit everyone knew there would be a sequel, and in fact the opening song in this year's movie is exactly that: an ode to the Hollywood tradition of making sequels to popular movies!

You don't need to have seen the 2011 movie to understand the current one, but if you enjoy the Muppets it's worth checking out the earlier movie.

For more about who we are and what we write about please see here:

Of Comic Books and Family Vacations: Who is GoldenRuleComics?
Who is GoldenRuleComics? Actually, the better question is who ARE GoldenRuleComics! I am the father of a teenage daughter, and we live in New Jersey. I hand...

Thanks for visiting and I hope you liked this review as much as we enjoyed the movie. Please share your thoughts on the Muppets, the movie or this review here.

Thanks again!