I loved The Muppets when it came out back in 2011. It was a perfect way to bring back the characters after not making a Muppets movie for a long time. Muppets: Most Wanted not only lives up to The Muppets, but in some ways improves upon it.
In Muppets: Most Wanted, the world's most dangerous criminal named Constantine, who looks exactly like Kermit, replaces himself with Kermit, who then gets mistaken for Constantine and gets thrown in prison. Meanwhile, Constantine plans to steal the crown jewel with the second most dangerous criminal Dominic Badguy. The Muppets soon become a part of this crime without them even knowing it.
The story may sound a bit simplistic, but there is actually a lot going on. It also has a Muppets style burst of originality and the story is surprisingly compelling. With everything that is going on, the stakes are constantly being raised.
In many aspects, Muppets: Most Wanted is better than The Muppets. For one thing, it doesn't focus too much on nostalgia, whereas The Muppets pretty much relied on nothing but nostalgia. They had their nostalgic return to the big screen with that film and they are now free to experiment with the Muppets formula, and it is very evident in Muppets: Most Wanted.
The music in the film is outstanding. I feel that the music is yet another aspect this film improved upon from The Muppets. I loved the music in The Muppets, but the music here has a much more Muppet style to it. It is also incredibly catchy and made me start dancing in my seat.
Speaking of Muppet style aspects, I feel the story also has a much more Muppet style to it than The Muppets had. It reminded me of films like The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan. It just feels like an adventure the Muppets would go on and stays true to the old Muppets style of filmmaking. The entire film has more of a classic Muppets feel and tone to it, which I think is great.
The characters are amazing. They're the Muppets that we all know and love. They haven't changed a bit and are still getting themselves involved in the crazy antics we're all familiar with them doing. They are all extremely lovable which, if you know the Muppets, you probably already know as well.
If there's one problem I have with the film it's that there are a few pacing issues. They are very, very minor pacing issues and things pick up again very quickly, but I think they could have cut down the film by a few minutes.
Muppets: Most Wanted, is a really fun film. It's filled with laughs, excellent musical numbers, and a little bit of heart to balance everything out.
Film Grade: A-
The highly anticipated Monsters University short film, Part Central, was shown before Muppets: Most Wanted. I'm happy to say that it is an absolutely wonderful short film! It is downright hilarious and chaotic!
The concept itself is also pretty inventive. Mike, Sulley, and the other members of Oozma Kappa want to throw a party. However, no one showed up, so they brought a door station to both the Oozma Kappa house and the Roar Omega Roar house, where there was a bigger party taking place, so they can go back and forth between the two and pretty much steal the entire party and the guests. When going from one door to the other, they had to constantly pass by a bedroom in the human world while the humans in the room were sleeping, which turned into a subplot that only added to the insane amount of humor Pixar crammed into this 6 minute short film.
One of the things I find so amazing about Pixar is how they expand upon the worlds of their films not only in their sequels, but in their short films as well. Party Central is no exception. It introduces us to a few interesting aspects of the monster world that we did not know about before. We learn about one particular thing that monsters do for fun, which I won't spoil since it's a really funny part of the short film.
Overall, Party Central is an amazing short film that on its own is worth the price of admission.
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