Mup­pets Most Wanted

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 real­ly 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 lord­ing it over the pop charts. Weirdy-beards are order­ing real 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 long 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. They’re all just gifts we’ve giv­en our­selves. 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. It’s cer­tain­ly the most fun you would ever hope to have in a dark­ened room full of children.

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’s 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. First stop, ​“the world cap­i­tal of com­e­dy – Berlin, Ger­many!” 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 sus­pect 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 Christophe 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 (Ush­er as a wed­ding ush­er? Nice one!) 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.”