<Review by: Sailesh Ghelani>

Directed by James Bobin. Starring Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, Ty Burrell, Ray Liotta, Danny Trejo and the voice talent of Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, Matt Vogel, David Rudman

Dead. Our childhood heroes, our childhood friends. Killed over and over again. With each remake, re-imagining and re-telling, they’re hacking at our memories and murdering our innocence. All for a few million dollars more.

 Don’t want this

Jim Henson is the chap who created the Muppets in 1955 and the The Muppet Show was supposed to be educational and fun, full of sketches and parodies and adorable characters who meant something and had just that: character.

Muppets Most Wanted takes those characters and makes them meaningless pawns in a ridiculous film with lacklustre music, blink and miss cameos and absolutely no laugh out loud moments. A chuckle here or there perhaps but that is all.

Made to look like it takes off from the end of the last film The Muppets, this one takes the colourful bunch off on a World Tour but with a new boss, Dominic Badguy. No points…

Kermit (Steve Whitmire) is insidiously replaced by the evil Russian frog Constantine (Matt Vogel) who wants to steal stuff and blame it on the clueless Muppet clan. And poor Kermi is left in a gulag in Siberia with prison guard Nadya (Tina Fey) watching over him and soon falling head over heels over him.

Both Muppets and humans interact in a world where it’s normal for that to happen. Interpol Inspector Jean Pierre (Ty Burrell) matches wits and badges with CIA operative Sam Eagle (voiced by Eric Jacobson). Miss Piggy (also Jacobson) is getting ready to marry Kermit who is actually Constantine but nobody seems to get it except for Animal (Jacobson).

Two star review since I don’t take bribes… (watch the film to get it)

I can only remember one of the songs from Muppets Most Wanted: ‘You’re number two, I’m number one’, which sounds a bit dodgy if you think about it.

There’s no real drama, suspense or fun in the film. Except for maybe Tina Fey’s character Nadya. And that’s just because Fey is an accomplished comedian. And Ty Burrell does his best but doesn’t have much to do given the limited script that has him taking siestas throughout the film.

And as for the numerous cameos by actors and singers who are just there so you can say, ‘Oh so-and-so is in the film’ they’re useless and unimpressive. Surely their talent could have been made use of more ingeniously.

Perhaps the song at the very beginning ‘We’re doing a sequel, That’s what we do in Hollywood, And everybody knows, That the sequel’s never quite as good’ is a forewarning to viewers of what is to come.