My review:

I've been a Muppet fan for as long as I can remember.  I was a first generation Sesame Street kid, I watched the Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock religiously, and I can even sing the entire 'Do (do do) What You Wanna Do.  Be (be be) what you wanna be..." song from the Muppet Babies cartoon.  One of my earliest movie-going memories was seeing The Muppet Movie at the drive-in theatre.  They have been such an important part of my life that I have Muppet tattoos and make puppets for fun.  In retrospect, I wasn't just watching Sesame Street and the Muppets - I was studying them (though I didn't know it at the time).  So any time a Muppet-related film is released I get excited.  And nervous.

When The Muppets was released a few years back I was apprehensive.  Knowing that Oz and a number of others declined to be involved because the script didn't meet their ideal of a Muppet property I got nervous.  But when I watched the film I was delighted.  It was a sweet story about friendship and love.  It brought the gang together in the old theatre, lovingly tying in the movies and the Muppet Show itself.  The music was middle of the road for me though, which was a let down.  With the exception of Man or Muppet and Pictures in My Head, I was somewhat disappointed.  But all in all, it was a great experience.

Muppets Most Wanted was something else entirely.  Let's begin with the music.

THE MUSIC
The music, to me, was far superior in this film.  They've Ordered a Sequel is the opening number and it's classic Muppets all the way.  It has everything - a catchy tune, self-reference, choreographed swimmers, the whole shebang.  I was smiling, taping my toes and bobbing my head the entire time.  I'm Number One was also very catchy and a lot of fun, as was the Interrogation Song.  I'm not a Celine Dion fan by a long shot, but Something So Right was also fantastic.  They also pulled out some more contemporary music such as The Macarena, Working in the Coal Mine, and Moves Like Jagger.  At first this bothered me - the Muppets are all about original songs after all.  It's part of that special Muppet magic.  But then I thought about The Muppet Show, which relied heavily on Muppet renditions of established music, so I decided to forgive them.  Also, Macarena and Moves Like Jagger were minimal as compared to the bigger, original song and dance numbers.  I give the music a solid 9/10

THE CAST 
We got classic Muppets almost throughout.  I was pleased to see that many of the long-standing voices such as Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire were present.  The replacement voices were very good, but Kermit just hasn't been Kermit since Jim passed (though Whitmire's version awfully close).  Gonzo and Piggy are in top form , as is Fozzy... almost.  My one complaint about the Muppet performances and characterization is that Fozzy keeps making poop jokes.  In The Muppets he had fart shoes.  In Most Wanted he makes a poop joke.  This is very much out of character for Fozzy and I think it may be one of the issues Oz had with returning to the character (in reading the Jim Henson biography I have discovered that Oz is apparently a very grouchy, crusty person). 

I also enjoyed the Rizzo cameo.  That was a cute bit of fun, if not a little sad for Rizzo.  I would have liked to have seen some more generic Muppets among the inmates at the Gulag.  There were a few but they were largely in the deep background.  A handful of Muppets sitting with the prisoners at the mess hall table would have been fun and provided a bit of a 'how'd they do that' moment (though I guess with CGI these days these moments are fewer and far between these days). 

Interestingly, I didn't care much for Constantine - the villain.  I thought he was a little cliche and not particular interesting - an unlikable character.  I understand we aren't supposed to like the villain, but we wind of are, are we not?  They tend to be more interesting than the heroes in most cases.  He had a few fun moments, particularly when he was interacting with the pig, but all in all he was a bit of a letdown to me. 

Muppet performances I give 9/10

THE CAMEOS
The cameos were far better handled this time around than they were in The Muppets.  That was one area that I thought was very weak in the previous film.  I love the little pop-ins of notable celebrities, though in this film there were apparently some Disney Channel kids whom I did not recognize.  I knew the flower delivery kid was 'someone' but I didn't know who.  I did enjoy the Josh Groban cameo as well.  I had hoped for more Danny Trejo.  I missed him in the first movie (he was featured prominently in the trailer only to be delegated to the additional scenes dvd extra) and was told he played a more prominent role here.  A friend who had seen it opening weekend told me that Trejo had a great number with Fozzy, but it was not in the film that I watched last night.  Cameos get a 9/10 from me.  Would have been 10/10 if Danny Trejo had performed with Fozzy (my favourite Muppet).

THE STORYLINE
The storyline itself was pretty OK.  It was a little derivative of The Great Muppet Caper, which is both good and bad I suppose.  It gives us a classic caper storyline, which can always be a lot of fun, but it's a caper that we've already experienced with the Muppets.  I don't know what could have been done differently, but it might have been nice to have gone a different route.  I did enjoy all the little pop culture references, though one I didn't quite understand was Constantine's steel teeth.  I get that it was a Jaws reference from James Bond, but they show up twice, once in a scary confrontation scene and again when Constantine chews through a rope net.  I get that they had to be introduced prior to being used as a plot device but I thought it was just sort of stuck in there, handled awkwardly.

One complaint a lot of people seem to have is that the story is slow.  I have read on IMDB that people are leaving the theatre before it's over.  This makes me sad.  If you go back and watch The Muppet Movie and Muppet Caper, they also plod along at a slow pace, allowing the story to unravel.  Such was the form of storytelling at the time.  Today we need something to 'pop' every couple of minutes to keep our attention.  We're instant gratification stimulus junkies, by and large, and Muppets Most Wanted doesn't exactly give us that.  Some might call that poor filmmaking, but I disagree.  I love plot.  I love characterization.  To use a very different show for comparison, I love how The Walking Dead allows the story to unravel slowly, with entire episodes devoted to character revelations and development.  The Muppets Most Wanted does this (with significantly fewer decapitations and cuss words of course) and I applaud them for it.  I long for a day when we can get back to storytelling and away from pops and flashes that distract us from the fact that there's nothing beneath the surface.

I give plot 8/10 and storytelling method a solid 10/10

All in all I really enjoyed this movie.  I will see it again and as I'm prone to do, I will undoubtedly come out of it with a whole new list of observations and notes.  If you love the Muppet music you will deeply appreciate this effort.  If you want to have fun and can manage to endure a story unraveling at a steady, even pace, and of course if you love the Muppets, then you should see this film.

Great review!  Thanks for taking the time to share with us!

Thanks for the review!  I can't wait to get to the theatre to see it!