When Ms Fey meets Miss Piggy
FEY AND MISS PIGGY. Who will steal Kermit’s heart?
It isn’t easy being green—especially if you have a bunch of attention-seeking animated performers to manage. But, the resilience of Kermit the Frog (voiced by Steve Whitmire) is truly put to the test when his nasty doppelganger, Constantine (Matt Vogel), throws him into a Siberian gulag (run by the musical theater-loving Nadya, portrayed by Tina Fey) and takes his place as the leader of the Muppets.
Despite their increasingly horrendous stage acts and antics, the group is set to embark on a globe-trotting performance tour. Amy Adams and Jason Segel are “ubiquitously absent” in director James Bobin’s “Muppets Most Wanted.”
This time, Ricky Gervais is cast as Hollywood agent Dominic Badguy, who teams up with the world’s Most Dangerous Frog to use the gullible Muppets as a cover for a series of heists that has CIA and Interpol (Ty Burrell) agents scratching their heads.
Suspicious attitude
Miss Piggy notices the changes in her usually less-than-enthusiastic amphibian fiancé, but attributes Kermit’s strange accent and suspicious eager-beaver attitude to prewedding jitters—he even allows her to sing Celine Dion’s iceberg-melting tunes onstage!
But, it doesn’t take long for Fozzie, Walter and Animal to notice that—something is amiss! To set things right, they must find Kermit before Constantine turns the porcine fashionista into bacon for breakfast!
The Muppets’ fun and frothy opening number in this flick astutely notes that “sequels are never quite as good”—and they’re right! “Most Wanted” has the frenzied focus of a preschooler in a toy shop.
Be that as it may, you’ll find yourself rooting for its beleaguered protagonists, because they acquit themselves like wide-eyed optimists who just don’t know better—and they certainly look like they’re “entitled” to viewers’ rapt attention.
Stellar faces
It doesn’t hurt that there are stellar faces waiting in the wings to share the spotlight with the Muppets—like Salma Hayek clad in red tights to battle a herd of bulls onstage, and Josh Groban singing his heart out as he slithers his way out of solitary detention at a maximum security prison.
Kermit’s incarceration introduces him to his new triple-threat blockmates—Ray Liotta, Danny Trejo and Tom Hiddleston, who must yield to Nadya’s wishes for the inmates to learn song-and-dance routines for the gulag’s Talent Night—or else…!
Later still, Miss Piggy shares the spotlight with Dion as her birit-belting Piggy Fairy Godmother! No other movie can gather a stellar cast as excitingly diverse as this: It isn’t every day that you see Miranda Richardson, James McAvoy, Christoph Waltz, Stanley Tucci, Frank Langela, Zack Galifianakis, Sean Combs, Chloe Grace Moretz, Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett and Usher (winkingly cast as, well, an usher) making fools of themselves—all in good, green fun!
