It’s not every day that I get invited by Disney to bring my family to see a screening of Muppets Most Wanted. Lucky for us, that day was a few weeks ago. I still get excited driving onto the Disney lot in Burbank. I don’t work for Disney, I can’t even afford to go to Disneyland that often, but I’m a HUGE Disney movie fan. Yep… I think I’ve seen them all.
So, I did some Googling and found out that the original Muppet Movie opened in 1979. You might think that I wasn’t even alive way back then… you’d be wrong.
I grew up on Sesame Street and watching the Muppets long before they even had their own show. Then I was a devoted fan of The Muppet Show before The Muppet Movie came along in 1979. The best thing for me was seeing all the celebrity guest stars performing right alongside the colorful, sometimes crazy, but always lovable puppets… oops… Muppets!
The funny thing about this movie is that David and I were more excited about going than my kids were.
So, in a nutshell: The evil Constantine breaks out of the Siberian Gulag and replaces Kermit on the Muppet World Tour. Constantine and his #2 man, Ricky Gervais, are the bad guys and Tina Fey plays the warden of the Gulag where Kermit ends up. Ty Burell plays an inspector chasing the bad guys and watch out for a cameo by Ray Liotta as one of the Russian prisoners. There are a few other surprise guest stars (hey, gotta have something for the adults), and underlying all of it is the never-ending love story between Kermit and Miss Piggy. Hint: there might be a wedding involved.
Amongst the drama, there are also a lot of great musical numbers. One thing the Muppets always seem to have is catchy songs (I’m still partial to Rainbow Connection).
Is this going to win an academy award? No.
Was it a really fun movie to watch and take the kids to? Definitely.
You gotta love the Muppets. Adults will revel in the nostalgia, and young kids will get a kick out of the Muppets themselves. My teen wasn’t a fan, but then again… we’re not talking Hunger Games here.
I was invited by Disney Studios to an advance screening of Muppets Most Wanted. I was not compensated or asked to write about the movie. All opinions are my own.
