Lady Gaga, Tom Hiddleston and James McAvoy among host of celebrity cameos in new Muppets movie
Blink and you'll also miss Ray Liotta, Hugh Bonneville, Salma Hayek and Usher in Muppets Most Wanted - a star-studded follow-up to the Muppets' 2011 big-screen outing
Muppets Most Wanted opens later this month – and it is a rollickingly enjoyable experience for young and old.
The follow up to the 2011 film takes our felted friends on a global tour – but one which is beset by a caper involving a criminal plot to steal various art treasures (and then the Crown Jewels) from the world's major museums. It’s all organised by Ricky Gervais’s Dominic Badguy – a name which does not seem to raise Muppet suspicions, even when he tells them his name is "French...Bad-JEE”. After a series of thefts quite clearly coincide with the venues played by the Muppets, Animal is the only one perceptive enough to smell a rat.
This is about the level of the humour – just the right kind of childishness I adore, but which may not be to precisely everyone’s tastes. It also features quite a few barbs against various nationalities –Ty Burrell’s Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon is a bone idle Frenchman who takes six hour lunch breaks, Badguy calls Berlin the “capital of comedy” and so on. But this being the Muppets there is enough charm and sweetness to carry it off.
And, of course, a big part of the fun is spotting the superstars making cameo appearances in the movie. Yes, we know that's Tina Fey as the Gulag guard Nadia. She has quite a big part.
But you may end up leaving the cinema, as I did, and find out that you actually missed Lady Gaga or Usher (playing, appropriately enough, an usher).
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Shameful, eh?
I did at least spot MacKenzie Crook and Toby Jones splaying curators of the Muso del Prado. And (I think) I managed not to blink when Dexter Fletcher made his appearance. I also enjoyed watching Tom Hollander and Hugh Bonneville as a pair of unscrupulous journalists (and I bet they had fun getting their own back on my profession).
Tom Hiddleston also pops up in a fun turn as Escapo, the inmate of the Siberian Prison Camp (presided over by Nadia) where Kermit finds himself sadly holed up.
Oh yes, and Ray Liotta appears as a camp inmate too, while the moment Celine Dion joins fellow diva Miss Piggy in a black-and-white music video got me chuckling.
Spots I never made were James McAvoy as a delivery driver (so I was told afterwards) and, I am afraid, Lady Gaga (must have been snaffling around in my popcorn at the time). But I am assured she is in it.
If I have missed any others I can only apologise, but I would recommend you check the film out for yourself. It's a joy….
Muppets Most Wanted is in UK cinemas from 28 March
