A grand opus of a Wes Anderson film, this movie is beautiful, off-beat, wonderfully acted, and thoroughly entertaining. The storytelling is often silly, utilizing clever camera moves to pull off hilarious sight-gags, it's chock-full of fantastic one-liners, and there's some screwball slapstick scenarios, but they also take a few moments to throw in some more sentimental beats. The interesting use of miniatures and the switching between aspect ratios were also some of the unique flourishes that help set this film apart from anything else out there.

4 Stars (out of 5)

I kind of liked two of the musical numbers in this one, and I felt like the Muppets themselves were true to their original characters, but the magic was just not there for me. The bad Kermit character Constantine steals the show, but everything else falls flat and feels like a waste of time. Gone are the glory days of the early original Muppet movies, with memorable songs that brought a tear to your eye, and earnest storylines that had you actually care for the characters and root for a happy ending. Now it's just more of the same: simple by-the-numbers story with Muppet characters shoe-horned in. The best moment in this film was the few seconds we see Rainbow Connection from 1979 on a television.

2.5 Stars (out of 5)

Having never seen the show I was actually surprised by how well of a stand alone film this turned out to be. It did a decent job of setting up the characters and relaying the information about where the show left off. I enjoy a good whodunit movie and this was just that. I could tell from the overwhelmingly positive response from the audience in my theater that the film paid enough fan-service to the fan-base as well, and seemed to wrap up the storyline nicely for everyone.

3 Stars (out of 5)