Muppets Most Wanted review — little fresh material makes for the mediocre

TOO many celebrity cameos and too little fresh material leaves Muppets Most Wanted parked on a plateau of pleasant mediocrity.

Muppets Most Wanted (G)

Director: James Bobin (The Muppets)

Starring: Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, Ty Burrell, the voices of Steve Whitmire, Matt Vogel.

Rating : **1/2

THE eighth Muppet movie in 35 years peaks early with a very amusing song-and-dance sequence titled We’re Doing a Sequel (sample lyric: “everybody knows a sequel’s never quite as good”).

Such hilarious honesty only serves to work against Kermit and the gang shortly thereafter.

Too many celebrity cameos and too little fresh material leaves Muppets Most Wanted parked on a plateau of pleasant mediocrity.

Sure, it could have been worse, but it could have been a hell of a lot better, too.

News_Image_File: Mediocre ... Muppets Most Wanted fails to reach the highs of the 2011 reboot.

With all creative momentum generated by the hit 2011 reboot gone — along with that movie’s star and co-writer Jason Segel — Muppets Most Wanted also over-commits to a story that underwhelms as a crowd-pleasing comedy.

While the Muppets are on a theatre tour of Europe at the behest of shonky new manager Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais), Kermit the Frog (voiced by Steve Whitmire) is kidnapped and thrown in an icy Siberian prison.

His place in the Muppets hierarchy is taken by an identical impostor named Constantine (Matt Vogel), who has the troupe completely duped. Not even his un-Kermit-like move of cheerily proposing marriage to Miss Piggy arouses any suspicion.

As Constantine refines a sinister scheme to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, Kermit is forced by warden Nadya (Tina Fey) to produce the prison’s annual musical revue.

News_Image_File: Cameo catastrophes .. Tina Fey is far from her comedic best in Muppets Most Wanted.

Both Gervais and Fey show only passing glimpses of their best comedic form in one-note leading roles. Ty Burrell fares much better with a smaller slot as an Inspector Clouseau-esque detective.

Little added worth comes from the zillion cameos studded throughout Muppets Most Wanted.

For every one that works (such as Christophe Waltz dancing an exquisite waltz), there are four that just lie there and die nothing (a random sample: Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett, Sean Combs and Usher as an usher).

Muppets Most Wanted opens in Victoria and Queensland on Monday April 7th, and the rest of Australia on Thursday April 10th.