Muppets Most Wanted

Directed by James Bobin

(PG)

**

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“Something’s missing from this sequel, and it isn’t jokes about how sequels usually disappoint,” said Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. Three years after a successful relaunch of their movie franchise, Kermit and the rest of the Muppet gang open this follow-up with a song about how sequels rarely satisfy, then make good on their prediction. “The atmosphere has soured,” largely because the story’s villains eat up most of the screen time. Ricky Gervais plays the Muppets’ conniving new manager, who has teamed with an evil Kermit the Frog look-alike to loot various European capitals while the gang is performing a world tour. But “what do we care” about this pair’s misadventures? said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. “We came to watch the Muppets” and have to settle for occasional glimpses of the real Kermit trapped in a Russian gulag. Still, a wealth of inside jokes and amusing songs “keep the movie humming even when the plot threatens to sag,” said Ann Hornaday in The Washington Post. Maybe this effort fails to rebottle the magic of the 2011 reboot, but “it does a terrific job trying.”