Kermit and co return for a delectable, gag-laden Euro pudding that might
just be a Muppet masterpiece.
Scene: a bleak and blasted Siberian gulag. Tina Fey, decked out in
glossy jackboots and elegantly tailored Russian guard’s uniform, belts out a
brassy, smartly choreographed production number espousing the manifold joys of
centralised state funding. Meanwhile, a chorus of grey-faced inmates, including
Ray Liotta, Danny Trejo and the big-boned one out of Flight of the
Conchords, accompany her on doo-wop harmonies. A timid but big-hearted amphibious
green sock-puppet looks on.
Is there anywhere else we could be but in a Muppet movie?
A Muppet movie. The very words spark up an inner warmth that’s part cosy
fireside glow and part unsupervised firework display. As joyous, psychotic and
surreal as they are, the Muppets occupy a unique position in the cultural
heartland. They exist in a nightmarish burlesque DMZ that shares Fuzzy-Felt
borders with the Dadaist anarchy of Monty Python, the broad, rootsy
experimentalism of The Beatles and the acid-baked iconoclasm of the Manson
Family. But with more frogs and bears.
In fact, with those credentials, it’s little wonder that Kermit and the
gang fell slightly off the media map during the business-end of Reagan’s go-go
'80s and the dotcom '90s. At heart, the Muppets have always traded in
'60s-style subversion and the chazzed-up, can-do euphoria of the '70s. Today,
the hypercharged down-home banjo-wrangling of Mumford & Sons lord it over
the pop charts. Weirdy-beards are ordering craft ale and hand-raised pork pies
in pubs. Girls are knitting on the top decks of buses and spunky little
shops/restaurants/crematoriums are blinking into life on every local high
street. It would appear that a collective yen for tactile, homespun delights
has returned. So re-start the (folksy) music, re-light the (candle) lights and
unleash the inner Muppet that has lain dormant inside you for all these years.
Perversely, it isn’t actually difficult to imagine a world in which the
Muppets never existed — It’s a Muppetful Life, if you like — but that is surely
the point. It’s just as easy to imagine a world without ketchup, bubble-bath or
Australia — they’re all just idle luxuries. But without pointless little
treats like the Muppets to brighten up the dark Nietzschean corners of the
abyss, man is no more than antic mud. It’s called fun, and one look out of your
window will confirm that it’s a commodity that’s currently in short supply. As
humanity inexorably ascends toward the vast Google-approved cloud of hive-mind
statelessness that is surely its unnatural destiny, the Muppets are here to
remind us to kick back, accentuate the positive vibes and make room for such
insane and useless fripperies as rocket-assisted chickens, piano-playing dogs
and ursine Jewish stand-ups. A pig in love with a frog? No problem. No-one’s
going to judge you here.
Quite simply, Muppets Most Wanted is unnecessary fun of the
purest stripe. A souped-up volley of knockout gags, bizarro cameos, breakneck
energy and unchecked mayhem all constellating around a freewheeling,
globetrotting road movie, Most Wanted is easily the best Muppet film since the
first Muppet Movie way, way back in 1979. It is, to appropriate that
original film’s sly tagline — more entertaining than humanly possible.
While 2011’s The Muppets had an abundance of charm, it was
also a somewhat belaboured re-introduction of old friends to a new audience. A
necessary scene-setter and an enjoyable calling card, it did its job and
everyone went home happy. Now, with everyone’s baggage stowed away safely and
all passports duly stamped, returning director James Bobin (a
key creative alumnus of Flight of the Conchords) is free to trade on the
enormous good will engendered by his first stint in charge of the menagerie,
and finally let the Muppets completely off the chain.
Most Wanted picks up exactly where the previous film left off, with the
closing bars of The Muppets’ climactic end-credits sing-along still ringing in
our ears. But when the music fades and the lights start to dim,Kermit and
friends find themselves with little else to do but stand forlornly in the
street and kick their heels while the sets are dismantled, the extras go home
and the studio is cleared. The gang is back together, but they’ve got nowhere
left to go.
Oozing into the void comes Ricky Gervais' suspect impresario Dominic
Badguy (pronounced 'Bad-gee' — it’s French, apparently) with an offer of a
big-time world tour for which Kermit believes the Muppets are severely
unprepared. Convincing himself that the show will come together on the road,
Kermit reluctantly gives the green light and the Muppets head off on a
purpose-built steam train. All, however, is not what it seems, as we discover
when Constantine — a master thief and the world’s most dangerous frog — escapes
from prison in Siberia and swiftly assumes Kermit’s identity. "Hello, my
name is Kai-yearrr-ah-meet," he announces in a gloopy Russian accent that
you’ll be attempting to replicate as soon as you leave the cinema, if you
aren’t already trying.
With Kermie mistakenly thrown into Tina Fey’s gulag (band name?) and the
evil Constantine’s laissez-faire attitude to showbiz allowing the Muppets to
indulge their every artistic whim — including Gonzo’s 'Indoor Running of the
Bulls', Miss Piggy’s Celine Dion fixation and Animal’s super-extended prog drum
solos — the Muppets appear to be coming apart at the seams. Pun intended. And
when Interpol suspects them of having pulled off a series of daring heists
across Europe, the gig looks certain to be up. If only friendship and mutual
co-operation could somehow save the day...
Of course none of this really matters. As with all road movies, it’s the
journey that counts, not the destination. Stick a pin in a map, pack a hamper
and pack in the shits'n'giggles along the way. Here, the plot is consciously
disregarded at every turn in favour of a sketch-based gallivant across Europe
that affords unmissable opportunities for locally-sourced celebrity cameos such
as Christoph Waltz dancing the waltz in Berlin and the fully-Mexican Salma
Hayek hanging out with Gonzo in... Madrid.
Indeed, the Muppets treat Europe like a baby treats a nappy. Berlin is
painted as a dank, cobbled Weimar ghetto, Spaniards are lazy, Brits are toffs,
and the French — in the form of prissy Interpol agent called (zut alors!) Jean
Pierre Napoleon — get it in the neck at every opportunity. Are the filmmakers
perhaps spoofing American perceptions of Gallic life when they lampoon a
caricature version of France made up of tiny electric cars, long, long lunch
breaks and outdated Old World technologie? Or are they simply taking le piss?
As it rolls on, the film does tend to lose a smidgeon of its crackpot
vitality, with some of the dance numbers feeling a little undernourished, the
cameos becoming more and more careless and gags eventually taking a backseat to
narrative. A shame, as the opening hour expends so much worthwhile energy
reminding us that life does not necessarily conform to the peerlessly precise
three-act narrative arc of, say, Toy Story,
but is more usually a haphazard flurry of glorious bullshit experienced in the
company of total and utter nitwits.
This is as close as Most Wanted comes to a life lesson. Kermit may tell
the Muppets that they will learn something about "sharing or waiting your
turn or the number three", but they don’t. Not really. The main thing kids
will take away is to at least try and notice if your best friend has been
abducted and replaced with a murderous amphibian crimelord. And even then,
don’t judge him too harshly.
Because deep down we’re all Muppets. We’re all freaks, three-time
losers, starry-eyed delusionals, busted hucksters, gonzo idiots, nearly men,
luckless outcasts or some or another permutation of one or all of those. But
we’re also all part of one big dysfunctional global family now; a hot,
formless, atomised mess of pokes and tweets and flashmob ennui, and the show,
such as it is, must go on. Not with grit or fortitude or anything as aimless
and dreary as keeping calm and carrying on, but with spangly costumes,
pointless explosions, big band showtunes, bad jokes, Special Guest Stars and a
porcine femme fatale.
We might not ever make our own rainbow connection, but we owe it to
ourselves to have as much loud, dangerous and extravagant fun as possible along
the way, because as Sigmund Freud almost put it, "Every normal person is,
in fact, only normal on the average. His ego, in some part or other,
approximates to that of a Muppet."
