Singing, dancing, jokes, puns, cameos, action and excitement. All of these things are awaiting you, and as many as kids you can handle, in a film that will probably be the major Oscar winner for 2014. Not an Academy Award Oscar, but an Oscar the Grouch winner. Why? Because most of the film’s performers are Muppets.
In this outing, the Muppets go on a world tour after meeting up with comedian Ricky Gervais, who is playing the #2 bad guy. Who’s #1? Kermit the Frog’s evil look-alike, Constantine (a dual role played by Kermit). And what’s he up to? Constantine and his #2 are using the Muppets’ world tour to cover up a string of major heists from the biggest banks and art galleries in Europe.
The film travels from Paris to England, to Ireland, to Spain, and ultimately to a Siberian gulag. In fact, it was completely filmed in England and Disney Studios in Hollywood. Also in the works is the never-to-happen culmination of the ongoing-forever-and-ever romance between Kermit and Miss Piggy in holy matrimony. This event is set to take place in the Tower of London and is really a cover for the theft of the Crown Jewels, the capstone of Constantine’s and RG’s diabolical plot.
Along the way there’s lots of singing and dancing, as well as a fine score by Christopher Beck. CB also scored the billion buck surprise, super success of the Disney blockbuster, Frozen, released November of 2013. Interspersed between the singing and dancing are scenes filled with humor and fun.
The only drawback to all the fun is the somewhat slow pace of the film. While the film moves from place to place, it all seems to drag like Kermit’s sincere, long delayed and way overdue proposal to Miss Piggy. While not the best of the Muppet series, it’s a lot better than the alternative – which is no Muppet film at all.
Rated 2.9 out of 4.0 reasons the opening weekend box office results may mean no more Muppet films in our future.