‘Muppets Most Wanted’ Pulls All the Right Strings

After the Muppets movie reboot was a hit in the U.S. in 2011, it only makes sense for all those felt-covered friends to hit the road in the sequel.

Disney’s Muppets Most Wanted takes the entire Muppets gang on a global tour, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe’s most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid and London.

But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine—the world’s No. 1 criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit—and his dastardly sidekick, Dominic Badguy, aka No. 2 (pronounced “bad ghee” and played by Ricky Gervais).

Yes, creating a dastardly character by taking an identical frog puppet, putting a mole on its cheek and giving him a Russian accent is corny. But this is the Muppets, and the premise is an over-the-top traveling show, which is perfectly acceptable.

Parents, most of your kids know practically nothing about the Muppets. Here’s your chance to bring them up to speed with Kermit, Miss Piggy and the gang. It’s also fun to watch Tina Fey as Nadya, a big-hearted prison guard whose Russian accent seems to get better as the movie flows along, and Ty Burrell as bumbling Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon.

It only gets better from there. Imagine some of the meanest and hardest criminal character actors as Russian gulag prisoners who are tasked with putting on the annual dance and talent revue for the warden and his staff.

It’s not the main plot of the movie, but the hilarity of the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Frank Langella, Ray Liotta, Danny “Machete” Trejo and others doing song-and-dance numbers is well worth the price of admission. Gervais also performs well and behaves himself.

Other cameos include Tony Bennett, Sean Combs, Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Zach Galifianakis, Josh Groban, Salma Hayek, Usher, Miranda Richardson, Stanley Tucci and Christoph Waltz.

Family friendly, the movie features lots of laughs, while offering lessons about friendship and love.

Content Watch: Muppets Most Wanted is rated PG for some mild action, mostly of the
slapstick variety. It represents just wild chaos and various explosions as some of the Muppets are wont to do from time to time.