MUPPETS MOST WANTED
Cast: Ricky Gervais, Tina Fey, Ray Liotta, Ty Burrell
Drector: James Robin
113 mins
Drector: James Robin
113 mins
Even if the 21st century Muppets films don't quite reach the pinnacle established while Jim Henson was alive, “Muppets Most Wanted” is so much better than 2011's “The Muppets,” which successfully relaunched the onscreen escapades of Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and the rest of the ever-popular felt-covered crew.
This latest outing picks up precisely where the last one left off, with Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) wondering what's next, as the rest of the Muppets start singing a humorous number about sequels, prior to doing everything all over again. (Bret McKenzie provides a new load of clever and catchy songs for the Muppets to sing.)
Kermit (voiced by Steve Whitmire) announces it’s time for the gang to improve their act – but the rest of the team are enticed by the ideas of nasty villain Dominic Badguy (played by Ricky Gervais). Dominic announces his surname is pronounced “bad-jee” — and suggests the Muppets embark on a world tour. This rascal's plan is to replace Kermit with his evil look-alike counterpart Constantine (voiced by Matt Vogel), “the world's most dangerous frog,” and to use the Muppet World Tour as a front for his ambitious plan to stage robberies in major cities across the globe.
The presence or absence of a facial mole is all it takes to fool everyone into believing that Constantine is Kermit, and vice versa, so while Constantine tries to fill Kermit's MC shoes (despite the fact that he can't even say “Kyer-mitt” without an accent), Kermit gets thrown into Constantine's horrible prison cell at a Russian gulag, overseen by the brutal Nadya (Tina Fey).
The script, by Nicholas Stoller and director James Bobin is classic Muppets stuff, as they bombard the audience with jokes and fun, whilst maintaining a plot of sorts to assist momentum.
Kermit tries to escape the gulag under cover of the prison talent show he ends up directing, and it’s a scream to see Ray Liotta and Danny Trejo perform “I Hope I Get It” from “A Chorus Line”. Meanwhile, Sam the eagle (voiced by Eric Jacobson), appropriately now a CIA agent, tries to solve the rash of continental crimes with hysterically droll Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon (Ty Burrell). Napoleon constantly interrupts the investigation with lengthy lunch breaks and extended holidays.
One of the delights of “Muppets Most Wanted” is the cavalcade of celebrity cameos that come fast and furious throughout the film, but none of whom hang around long enough to distract too much from the film itself. Muppet aficionados will revel in seeing again the Swedish Chef (who gets to be at the centre of a hilarious Ingmar Bergman reference), Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, and boomerang fish-tosser Lew Zealand.
The whole thing is great fun - proving beyond doubt that these beloved characters will continue to lead a happy life on the big screen for years to come.
About Last Night
Cast: Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy, Regina Hall, Joy Bryant
Director: Steve Pink
Runtime: 100 minutes
David Mamet’s chin must have hit the floor had he seen the 1986 About Last Night - the previous ruination of his play Sexual Perversity In Chicago. To say that this latest version is worse would be a substantial understatement. Director Steve Pink has somehow managed to convert what is outstanding source material (ie Mamet’s original) - a caustic, profane study of gender warfare in the Windy City, into utter drivel, masquerading as a laughably poor romcom. Mamet’s breakthrough piece gets another modern makeover, this time being set in Los Angeles, but don’t be fooled by the ellipsis-free title. Despite a few deviations, About Last Night is mediocre in all aspects, with puerile over-acting, hamming, mugging and at times conveys a distinctly unpleasant misogynistic undertone.
Unwittingly coerced into a blind double date, Danny (Ealy) and Debbie (Bryant) stumble from an awkward meeting to a one-night-stand to a full-blown serious relationship. Due to the perception that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and toilet seats haven’t learned to put themselves down, these earnest young lovers find their paradise troubled—especially after they decide to shack up in his gaff, against the advice of respective best friends Bernie (the appallingly annoying and singularly untalented Kevin Hart) and Joan (Regina Hall). Varying slightly from the 1986 version, as well as Mamet’s blueprint, About Last Night also romantically pairs these supporting figures, whose on-again, off-again fling—and poorly acted sexual slapstick—runs parallel to the leads’ ailing romance.
These days, there’s nothing especially unusual about watching characters discuss the pitfalls of being the first to say “I love you,” or the danger of losing autonomy after moving in with a significant other. The dialogue at least has a moderate semblance of the flavour of 2014, but the hackneyed, hideously dated gender politics belong to the less-enlightened 1980s (apart from a token shot of someone ‘de-friending’ an ex on Facebook), which is where this could quite easily have been set. This film drains the whole scenario of the original play’s scathing cynicism and fills it with moronic piffle.
