Film / Muppets Most Wanted

Taking the world by farce.

We're doing a sequel
That's what we do in Hollywood
And everybody knows
That the sequel's never quite as good...

— "We're Doing a Sequel"

Muppets Most Wanted, the follow-up to 2011's The Muppets, follows... well, The Muppets (who else?) as they tour Europe, only to become ensnared in a caper as they encounter Constantine, a crime boss who bears an incredible resemblance to Kermit. The film sees the return of Flight of the Conchords alumni James Bobin and Bret McKenzie, as well as The Muppets co-writer Nicholas Stoller. Jason Segel is completely unaffiliated with this movie. The film stars Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell and Tina Fey.

It was released in theaters on March 21, 2014.

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2.

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Muppets Most Wanted includes the following tropes:

• Adam Westing: Danny Trejo.
• Adaptational Species Change: Colonel Thomas Blood was a real historical figure who really did attempt to steal the crown jewels (and was, obviously, human). Here, he's a Whatnot, the grouping of Muppets that includes Walter and Lew Zealand.
• An Aesop: Don't take your friends for granted, especially the ones who have led you to success, as they are more important than the fame you receive.
• Affably Evil: For an international jewel thief, Dominic is quite a polite chap, in contrast to his boss Constantine who holds everyone in contempt. When he's in jail he even thanks the cafeteria worker for his meal.
• The Alleged Car: Napoleon's police cruiser is roughly the size of a pregnant roller skate, runs about as well, and the floorboards break very easily.
• All for Nothing: Parodied. When Constantine, posing as Kermit, tells the other Muppets that Walter and Fozzie have "quit" the Muppets, Rowlf complains that they just did a whole movie about Walter joining the Muppets.
• The Artifact: The opening song contains a lyric referring to the movie's original title, The Muppets... Again.
  • As does the new version of "Together Again," "Together Again, Again."
• Artistic License – Geography: Oy, where to even begin...
  • The Muppets begin their world tour by taking a train from Los Angeles to Berlin. Across the north pole, no less.
  • This makes it only slightly less ridiculous when they take the same train from Madrid to Dublin later on.
  • Fozzie, Walter, and Animal somehow manage to reach the Siberian Gulag where Kermit is being held within roughly a day. By walking. From Dublin. And they end up getting lost in a desert along the way. Twice.
  • All of the above makes it seem even stranger that it takes Napoleon and Sam over 30 hours to drive from Geneva to Madrid (normally about a 13-hour trip). Of course, they are driving The Alleged Car.
• ...And That Would Be Wrong: When Fozzie is told that Dominic is bribing critics for good reviews his response is "Why didn't we ever think of doing that?" Beat. "I mean, that's terrible!"
• Ascended Extra:
  • Link Hogthrob, slightly. Going from being a part a musical number in the last movie to being part of a musical number and having actual dialogue in this one, this is Link's biggest role in a Muppet movie yet.
  • Sam the Eagle has a much larger role, working with Ty Burrell's character to solve Constantine's crimes.
  • Pepé and Janice, who had very little dialogue in the previous film, and Rizzo and Robin, who had none.
  • A pair of real-life examples: Ricky Gervais and Danny Trejo both had (deleted) cameos in The Muppets (2011), only to receive a major and supporting role, respectively, in this movie.
• As Himself: Apparently the badass gulag prisoner played by Danny Trejo is... Danny Trejo.^note If you look at the credits, Danny Trejo is not cast as "himself" but as "Danny Trejo." Meaning that he's technically playing a character who happens to be named Danny Trejo.
  • The guest stars on each of the venues: Christoph Waltz in Berlin, Salma Hayek in Madrid, and Saoirse Ronan in Dublin.
  • Usher appears as... a wedding usher:
  I'm the Usher.
  • Sean Combs appears as himself playing craps with the Muppets on a train; Pepé calls him "Diddy".
• Aside Glance: Performed by Dominic as Constantine struggles to say "burglary."
• Award-Bait Song: "Something So Right", complete with a Céline Dion cameo.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Kermit and Piggy in a nutshell. Piggy seems more in love with the concept of being married to him and Kermit's definitely not as gung-ho to rush into things (this was a minor subplot in the previous film, and a Running Gag through the series), but Constantine's manipulation of Piggy causes her a lot of doubts, and Kermit is seen with a rather... interesting... pin-up of Piggy in his cell. Not to mention how Kermit manages to tell Constantine off.
• The Baroness: Nadya, of the Sexpot variety.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Kermit vetoed a lot of his crew's ideas due to being way too long (Electric Mayhem's marathon jam session), inappropriate (Piggy's Giftedly Bad singing), or just plain nuts (an indoor Running of the Bulls, Gonzo?!). With Kermit gone, Constantine impersonating him, and Dominic not caring, the whole show goes Off the Rails, and only Dominic's bribery hides how awful it truly is.
  • Likewise, Constantine plays Piggy for a fool by pretending to be the willing suitor Kermit usually isn't. Piggy is really happy to be getting what she wanted... but starts to have second thoughts about it all when it's nearly too late.
• Big Damn Heroes: When Constantine catches Walter and Fozzie figuring out that he's stolen Kermit's identity, Animal pounces on him.
• Blatant Lies: Dominic Badguy, about his surname: "It means... good man."
• The Bluebeard: Constantine is set to become this to Miss Piggy near The Climax with a wedding ring which was also a time bomb explosive. Luckily, she gets saved by Bunsen's magnetic bomb attracting vest. See Chekhov's Gun below.
• Bluff the Impostor: Piggy does this when both Constantine and Kermit show up at the same time. The one who hesitated over the marriage proposal, she concluded, had to be the right one.
• Bowdlerize: Scooter's cover of "Moves Like Jagger" replaces the lyric "Kiss me til I'm drunk" with "Kiss me on the cheek."
• Book Ends: Amusingly, the first shot of the movie is the words "The End" from the last movie. The film ends with an actual "The End" card (cutting off Nadya's solo number).
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Used by Danny Trejo, whose talents make him a triple threat: "Singing, dancing, and murder."
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: A significant amount of the jokes and scenes will frequently do this and overlap with Leaning on the Fourth Wall. The first five minutes has the entire Muppets cast singing about how this movie is going to have Sequelitis, then try to decide what the sequel's plot is going to be. invoked
  • A quick blink and miss it scene is where Constantine is trying (and seriously failing) to say "burglary". The ensuing shot of Dominic has him looking exasperated and briefly glancing at the camera in a "my boss is a twit" kind of way.
  • The Fourth Wall is thoroughly demolished in the extended cut, when Fozzie, Walter, and Animal rescue Kermit from the gulag:
  Kermit: "The weakest point in the gulag is over there, by the fourth wall."
  [Kermit, Fozzie, Walter, and Animal turn and stare at the camera for several long seconds.]
  • When Constantine tells the Muppets that Fozzie and Walter have quit the Muppets, they remark that they just did an entire movie on how Walter joined the Muppets, with Rizzo remarking that they spent more time on him than on more beloved Muppets.
  • A deleted scene features a group of Disney Channel stars arriving at Kermit and Miss Piggy's wedding claiming to the "Disney synergy invites"
• Brick Joke: The "maximum security prisoner" gets to come out of his cell for the finale and turns out to be Josh Groban.
  • In the extended cut, we see one of Gonzo's runaway bulls tackle the Muppet Newsman after he announces "Kermit" and Piggy's wedding.
• Bride and Switch: Constantine pulls this, distracting Piggy with a marriage proposal, and then telling the rest of the crew that he's disbanding the Muppets to settle down with her.
• Bungling Inventor: Bunsen, as usual. In reference to his bomb-attracting suit, Kermit asks, "WHY would you ever invent something like that?" Subverted in that this utterly insane invention saves the day when Constantine tries to blow up Miss Piggy.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite their eccentric personalities and quirks, both Sam the Eagle and Jean Pierre are rather good at their jobs. They do manage to make good deductions based on logical reasoning, making the connection between the Muppets and the heists. They do question the Muppets, and while they do rule out that there is nothing implicitly linking them to the crimes, they still believe that there has to be some connection. It's only when they are given false evidence that the pair are led astray, but even then it backs up their theory that one of the Muppets was responsible.
  • Police Are Useless: Despite all of this, Sam and Jean are of no real help in actually defeating and capturing Constantine.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Louise Gold returns to the Muppet cast after a fifteen-year absence, to bring back her character Annie Sue after an absence nearly twice as long. Despite is, Annie Sue doesn't do anything of importance or even have any lines.
  • Also Mildred Huxtetter (the purple upper-class woman Muppet) made a couple of cameos in the movie after not being seen properly as a main Muppet since The Muppet Show ended.
  • Pops makes his first appearance in a Muppet movie since The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984).
  • Blind Pew returns as a Gulag prisoner. This is his first appearance in a long time since he was last seen walking through a burning tavern more than 20 years ago in Muppet Treasure Island (1996).
  • Andy and Randy Pig, Howard Tubman, Carter, and Spamela Hamderson make their first appearance since Muppets Tonight. This movie marks the first and only time Spamela makes an appearance in a Muppet Movie (in which she actually follows the required dress code for Kermit and Miss Piggy's wedding).
• Call-Back:
  • The very beginning of this movie begins with the very ending of the last movie, or rather, on the "The End" title, where we hear the last two bars of "Life's a Happy Song". We even see Gary and Mary, but their backs are turned to the camera to hide the fact that they couldn't get Jason Segel or Amy Adams to return.
  • In the end, everyone sings the hit song from The Muppets Take Manhattan "Together Again"... again.
  • Blind Pew and some of the other pirates from Muppet Treasure Island appear as inmates at the Gulag.
  • Miss Poogy, the obnoxious Moopet who briefly takes the place of Miss Piggy in The Muppets (2011), pops up here as one of the inmates in the Russian gulag.
  • Walter briefly uses his whistling again - Not for entertainment purposes this time, but to get everyone's attention so he can ask about the strange behavior "Kermit" has been displaying lately. We also see Walter wearing his Kermit the Frog wristwatch, an item shown to be of great importance to him in The Muppets (2011).
  • Like The Muppets Take Manhattan, Piggy has a wedding at the end, only here it's with Constantine instead of Kermit. And this time, it's Piggy who hesitates on saying "I do", but the Muppet crowd still leans forward in anticipation.
  • In the extended cut:
  Kermit: "Bear left."
  Fozzie: "Right, frog."
  • Cutting off Nadya's solo at the very end, Kermit did the same thing to Carol Burnett in the original show, cutting her off before she can do her final act.
  • Hobo Joe is at Piggy and Constantine's wedding.
  • Angel Marie from Muppet Treasure Island is the chef at the gulag.
  • It's not quite the same visually (nor is the same term used), but the Muppets are clearly traveling by map when their train initially heads to Europe.
  • At the very end of the credits, Fozzie says to the audience, "You can go home now, Ma. The movie's over," a possible nod to the opening titles of The Great Muppet Caper, in which Fozzie asks if anyone reads the names in the credits, and Kermit responds, "Sure, they all have families."
• The Cameo: It wouldn't be a Muppet movie without them.
  • This is lampshaded by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga who's one line is singing about "one liner cameos"
  • As in The Muppets (2011), we hear Jerry Nelson's voice introducing The Muppet Show (as a tribute, as he had passed away a few months before filming began).
  • Doubling as a Creator Cameo in its own right, artists from Double Negative VFX's Singapore branch make cameos during the wedding.
  • James McAvoy as a UPS delivery guy.
  • Tom Hiddleston as The Great Escapo.
  • Ross Lynch as a flower delivery guy.
  • Usher as an usher.
  • Céline Dion appears to help Piggy sing her Céline Dion number.
  • Stanley Tucci is a Gulag sharpshooter and has the honor of firing a warning shot to stop Kermit from fleeing the prison.
  • Zach Galifianakis returns to reprise his role as Hobo Joe.
  • Chloë Grace Moretz as a newspaper delivery girl.
  • Josh Groban is the guy in solitary with the beautiful pipes.
• Cameo Cluster: The ending musical number has the various celebrities that have cameoed throughout the film come back to join in for one more song, including Chloë Grace Moretz, Tom Hiddleston, Tony Bennett, Salma Hayek, and plenty more.
• Camera Abuse: Constantine literally smears vaseline on the camera to achieve a romantic effect while he promises that he can give Miss Piggy "anything you want".
• Capture and Replicate: Constantine disposes of Kermit by sending him to the gulag and subsequently masquerades as him for the majority of the movie.
• Card-Carrying Villain: "Dominic Badguy", who quite literally has a card that says his last name, which is "bad guy". He pretends that it's French and doesn't mean "bad guy".
• The Cast Show Off: Constantine gets a couple of flashy musical numbers, "I'm Number One" and "I'll Get You What You Want", and especially sounds good in the latter. It makes sense, because in addition to being a Muppet performer, Matt Vogel is also a singer and musician, and even has his own band (The Mighty Weaklings). Being the a successor of Jerry Nelson (who also did a lot of singing during his heyday and was a talented musician in his own right) helps a lot.
• Chekhov's Gun: Bunsen's bomb-attracting vest.
• Chekhov's Skill: The throwaway comment about the "Muppet Ladder" trick.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: It turns out that Nadya knew all along that Kermit is not Constantine, but is keeping him detained out of her intense fangirl crush on the A-list amphibian.
• Comically Missing the Point: Walter, upon seeing Dominic bribing critics with suitcases full of money: "Where does he keep all those suitcases?"
• Creator Cameo: Steve Whitmire, Kermit's puppeteer, appears as one of the prisoners at the gulag Kermit gets taken to, for the sole purpose of not having to figure out how to hide Whitmire when a mob of prisoners carries Kermit away.
• Credits Gag: Three of them.
  • When the credits begin to roll, Sweetums is seen pulling them up on a rope slowly. Fozzie enters to help him by pulling on another rope, followed by Rowlf and the Swedish Chef. By the time the cast list almost completes, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew arrives with an invention made to make the credits scroll up on their own. He pushes the button, but the credits scroll up way too fast.
  • In the middle of the credits, Fozzie comes in and says, "Check this out!" He then puts his hat on the "LOS ANGELES UNIT" text, which scrolls up.
  • At the very end, Fozzie returns and says, "The movie's over. You can go home now, Ma."
• Criminal Doppelgänger: Constantine is a Card-Carrying Villain master thief seeking to steal the Crown Jewels of England, and he looks identical to Kermit, distinguishable only by a mole on his lip.
• Damsel out of Distress: When Constantine tries to make off with Miss Piggy after their wedding is interrupted by Kermit, she quickly frees herself from her restraints and proceeds to beat the crap out of the impostor.
• A Day in the Limelight: Sam the Eagle, who was little more than an extra in the previous film, is much more prominent this time around.
• Didn't See That Coming: Gonzo, after his "indoor running of the bulls" goes horribly wrong — "The bulls are out of control! Who could've foreseen this?!"^note Salma Hayek did, and reminds Gonzo of this fact.
• Distant Duet: During "Something So Right", we see Kermit in the gulag singing the same thing as Miss Piggy.
• Distinguishing Mark: The main physical difference between Kermit and Constantine is the mole on Constantine's face.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Jean Pierre Napoleon and Sam the Eagle (here a CIA agent) get quite adamant over proving who has the bigger badge.
• Eagleland: The rare Muppet production that kind of agrees with Sam the Eagle's ideology. Instead of the self-serious butt of the joke, Sam is now the straight man to his over-regulated, emotional, incompetent European counterpart, Jean-Pierre Napoleon. Their subplot is largely comedic, but Napoleon is far and away the more buffoonish of the pair.
• Epic Rocking: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem's "jam session" in Madrid, which was among many of the ideas Kermit vetoed before being replaced by Constantine. Animal performs a drum solo that goes on for hours.
• Fake Shemp: The film opens immediately after the final scene of The Muppets (2011)... with Gary and Mary only seen from the back.
• Famous-Named Foreigner: The French Interpol officer is named Napoleon after famed French military leader and emperor Napoléon Bonaparte.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The fact that Constantine constantly calls Dominic #2 and that the notorious criminal "The Lemur" is the second greatest thief in the world should get people to add two and two together.
  • Also that his e-mail address (shown on the business card) is [e-mail].
    • Did you wonder where they got multiple copies of the Lemur's calling card?
  • Spain's critics/papers on the show being printed so fast.
  • The song "I'm number one" continuously reminds Dominic that he will always be The Dragon and nothing more as long as Constantine's pulling the strings. The lines "Dance Monkey Dance" and "Now step aside, this ain't your show" foreshadow Dominic being the Lemur, his attempt at usurping the roll of Big Bad from his boss, and the Curb-Stomp Battle that ensues.
  • Constantine calls Dominic his "monkey". A lemur is a type of lower primate.
  • Celine Dion's appearance during "Something So Right" is heavily foreshadowed by Miss Piggy's requests to perform her songs (even performing "My Heart Will Go On" during the Dublin show) and a signed photo of Dion appearing just before the number starts in Piggy's dressing room.
• Funny Background Event:
  • While Jean and Sam are watching the Muppets perform at Dublin, one can see that Jean parked his car in the theater, and it fits perfectly in the aisle.
  • When Nadya prepares to sing her (cut) solo at the end of "Together Again Again", Kermit makes a face, as if trying not to laugh at the knowledge of the upcoming gag.
  • Fozzie is playing with the lamp in the interrogation room while Jean and Sam admit that the Muppets are too stupid to be the thieves.
• Furry Reminder:
  • Early in the film, Miss Piggy tells Kermit the frog not to serve flies during their wedding reception.
  • During Piggy's verse of "The Interrogation Song", Napoleon bombards her with endless double-entendres about her species — "squeal", "bacon", "hide", etc. She isn't amused, but he fares better than some other people who've pressed this particular Berserk Button; in the Muppet Show days, she'd usually karate-chop the insulter in half.
• Gaussian Girl: Invoked during Constantine's love song to Piggy. The screen becomes blurred around the edges because Constantine is smearing Vaseline over the lens of the camera that represents Miss Piggy's point of view.
• Gender Equals Breed: In Miss Piggy's Imagine Spot, she and Kermit have a pig daughter and a frog son, though unlike in The Muppet Christmas Carol, the daughter is green and the son is pink.
• Genius Ditz: Dr. Honeydew.
• Go Through Me: The scene where Walter, Fozzie and Gonzo tell Nadya that Kermit's not going back to the gulag without them.
• Great Escape: Kermit uses the classic tunnel, laundry cart and sewer versions. Nadya sees them all coming.
• Hammerspace: While bribing some Irish newspaper writers, Dominic seems to pull money-filled suitcases from nowhere. Lampshaded by Walter.
• Happy Ending Override: Those millions of Muppet fans that appeared at the end of The Muppets (2011) to lend their support to the gang at their time of need? Yeah, those were just extras and paid dancers. Nobody still cares about the Muppets, as said multiple times throughout the first movie (and, as far as we can tell, they still don't by the end of this one).
  • Just as Nadya gets ready to sing a solo at the very end (something she's wanted to do ever since putting Kermit to work on the gulag talent show), she gets cut off by the credits.
• Historical Domain Character: Thomas Blood, who really did steal the crown jewels.
• Human Ladder: The Muppet Ladder routine, which is first mentioned as never working out, then pulled off successfully to help rescue Kermit and Piggy.
• Hurricane of Puns: Jean's interrogation of Miss Piggy is full of pig puns, much to her (and Sam's) chagrin.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Dominic does more than the lion's share of work, both on the actual heists and keeping the charade going.
• Hypocritical Humor: Miss Piggy is furious that Constantine tried to trick her into marrying him ignoring how often she tried that on Kermit.
  • Pepe, concerning Constantine (in the extended cut):
  Scooter: Two Kermits?! ...Well, that explains a lot.
  Rowlf: I knew no one could have a cold for that long.
  Pepe: Or have that cheesy an accent, okay.
• Identical Stranger: A lot of puppet design and performing work went into making Constantine look similar, but not exactly, like Kermit. Aside from the mole, there are several subtle differences, designed to make the audience notice without being obvious. Initially he was a slightly different shade, but this was scrapped as too obvious^note Thanks to some Product Placement, it later becomes plot relevant that both frogs are roughly the same color as guacamole from the Subway fast food chain.. His frill is shorter and wider than Kermit's. His eye slits are more horizontal than Kermit's, giving him less of an innate smile to his eyes, and thus he looks permanently angrier. The puppet's mouth was constructed to look like a frown, and the puppeteer, Matt Vogel, holds his hand in a claw-like position, giving him more of a sneer (and an underbite). Finally, Vogel swings Constantine more when walking, giving the illusion of a heavy-shouldered man (despite having no shoulders).
• Immediate Sequel: The movie literally opens as the gang finishes singing the reprise of "Life's a Happy Song" from the end of the previous film.
• Interpol Special Agent: Jean Pierre Napoleon, who chases the villains all over Europe.
• Jerkass Ball: The Muppets (except for Animal and Walter), letting their own egos getting the better of them to the detriment of their stage show and barely acknowledging Kermit. Both of these elements are specifically being encouraged by Dominic to prevent them from noticing that Constantine is not Kermit. Thankfully, they all drop it by the end.
• Jurisdiction Friction: The crimes committed by Constantine and Dominic being investigated by Sam the Eagle (who is shown to be part of the CIA) and Interpol agent Jean Pierre Napoleon. They get very little done until the end of the movie due to a "mine is bigger than yours" Running Gag and because Napoleon is a Joke Character who is constantly on breaks for the purpose of poking fun at French workers' entitlements.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Constantine getting beaten up by Piggy, then slapped in the face by Kermit, then arrested. Kermit's slapping him in particular is REALLY satisfying considering the amount of hell Kermit went through in this movie.
• Melancholy Musical Number: "Something So Right", where Miss Piggy has second thoughts about being married to Kermit (alias Constantine) so suddenly, and the rest of the Muppets are despondent about Kermit (alias Constantine) leaving them to be married, and start to wonder if their freedom is really worth it.
• Metronomic Man Mashing: Piggy flails Constantine back and forth across the helicopter after discovering he's an imposter and breaking free from his confines.
• Mirror Routine: When the heroes break into Constantine's room, Fozzie breaks a mirror just before Constantine walks in. Kermit hides by pretending to be Constantine's reflection.
• Mondegreen Gag: Constantine is prone to these while pretending to be Kermit. When practicing Kermit's voice while singing "Rainbow Connection", his rendition ends with "The lovers, the dreamers, and cheese"; he seems to mistake Kermit's signature "Hi-ho!" greeting for "Hi-llo!"; and he mispronounces most of the Muppets' names, notably calling Fozzie "Fonzie" and Gonzo "Zongo".
• Musicalis Interruptus: At the end, Kermit says that it's time for Nadya's big solo, but the screen cuts to "The End" before she can sing a single note.
• Must Make Amends: Walter, Fozzie and Gonzo tell Nadya that if she arrests Kermit, she'll have to arrest them too. It's clear that they're trying to make it up to Kermit for not noticing he was replaced.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The Muppets feel awful when they discover that Constantine switched places with Kermit and that they didn't notice, and they realize they've been taking him for granted for a majority of the film.
• Mythology Gag: In the opening sequence of The Muppet Show, keen-eyed viewers will notice that in the shot of the Muppet Show sign being flown out after Kermit does his introductory spiel, he is slumped limply in place (because the way that shot was filmed precluded a puppeteer being in position to operate him). In this movie, Constantine gets stage fright while doing the introductory spiel in Kermit's place and faints, slumping limply in the same pose.
• Never My Fault: Downplayed, as Fozzie appears to be quite embarrassed by this, but when Kermit asks Fozzie why he didn't notice that he — Fozzie's best friend — had his identity stolen by a criminal, Fozzie tries to justify his mistake ("He looked like you and talked like you! Well, okay, he didn't talk like you, but he said he had a cold!"). Then, when Kermit angrily calls out Fozzie and Walter for not noticing like Animal did, Fozzie says that it's not as bad as it sounds (Walter, meanwhile, admits that it is indeed as bad as it sounds).
• Number Two: Dominic serves as this to Constantine, as Constantine so pointedly likes reminding him. They even have a whole song about it, "I'm Number One".
  Constantine: I'm number one
  You're number two
  We're criminals at large but I'm at larger than you
  I'm number one
  You're number two
  I believe in equality
  As long as you get less than me
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Sam and Napoleon decide that Fozzie is "too stupid to be stupid", which is how they settle on him as a prime suspect. (He's not, of course.)
• Offscreen Teleportation: When Jean says he's going on vacation with his family, his family is suddenly standing beside him wearing and holding vacation gear, with no-one else there the previous scene, or any indication that they were nearby.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: Uncle Deadly plays one at Constantine and Miss Piggy's wedding, albeit innocuously — he has no more idea that the groom is an evil impostor than anyone, and it seems to simply be a natural outgrowth of his love of Horror Tropes.
• Out-of-Character Alert: The criminals realize Kermit is not Constantine the moment he says "thank you." Constantine apparently never says thanks to anyone for anything.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: Constantine, the world's most dangerous frog... is still a frog, which Piggy points out before beating the snot out of him.
• Painting the Medium: "We're Doing a Sequel...". How many introductory songs have references to the previous film's plot, nitpicking about how many films they've made, and even the fact that the studio, at the time, felt it was a marketable franchise?
  • Never mind jokes about the length of time it took to make Toy Story 4 (which wouldn't exist until five years later) and several film tropes. It's easier to describe it as Better than a Bare Bulb The Musical.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: The entire plot hinges on the fact that absolutely no one, human or Muppet alike, can see that Kermit and Constantine are completely identical, apart from Constantine's mole (and slight underbite).
• Patter Song: "Interrogation Song". Ty Burrell even confirmed this in an interview.
• Performance Anxiety: Constantine gets hit hard with this on the Muppets' opening night, to the point of passing out onstage. He claims it was vertigo! He gets over it pretty quickly after that, though.
• Pretentious Pronunciation: Dominic claims that his last name Badguy is actually pronounced badjee, on account of being French. Whether or not he's telling the truth isn't addressed.
• Prisoner Performance: Nadya, the warden of the Siberian Gulag, loves musical theater, so she enlists Kermit to help her organize the prisoners' annual talent show, "The Siberian Gulag Revue." Kermit does a great job directing the prisoners, even though they argue with him as much as the Muppets did, and they put on a perky performance of "Workin' in the Coal Mine." Only during the curtain call does Nadya realize that during the performance, all the prisoners, including Kermit, escaped through a trap door.
• Product Placement:
  • Fozzie is eating a meal from Subway (with the drink cup's logo prominently displayed on screen) and this is actually a plot point. The avocado from his sandwich landed on the picture of Constantine in the newspaper he was reading, which helped him and Walter to realize that "Kermit" was Constantine the whole time. (In Real Life, Subway did a tie-in with the film, offering bags.)
  • Also, UPS delivers Sam's biggest badge, a moment after it seemed Jean had the biggest badge.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: Constantine's henchman is called Dominic Badguy, but pronounces his surname as "Bad-GEE" (it's French).
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Fozzie, Walter, and Animal, arguably, as they go to break Kermit out of prison and then all go to stop the wedding.
• Recycled Premise: In basic terms, the movie is (perhaps accidentally) very similar to The Great Muppet Caper. It opens with a self-aware musical number explaining the movie, then the Muppets go to Europe, get entangled in a case of mistaken identity, and ultimately thwart a major jewel heist. Further, there's a Kermit-villain-Piggy love triangle, a song about the terrible accommodations in a "hotel", a ragtag group of investigators looking to get to the bottom of it, and a gag about Beauregard's terrible driving.
• Red Baron: "I am Constantine... World's most dangerous frog."
• Red Herring: The whole subplot about Dominic being the Lemur. All it amounts to is a Curb-Stomp Battle between Constantine and Dominic.
• Running Gag:
  • When it's time for Jean's breaks, he takes them, no matter where he is, or what is happening. Up to and including his vacation.
  • Constantine blowing things up with a remote detonator. Could double as a Chekhov's Gun or a Brick Joke, except that, by then, is no longer played for laughs.
  • Constantine twisting some of Kermit's more famous lines into sinister one-liners ("It's not easy being mean... hehe") or ridiculous mondegreens ("the lovers, the dreamers, and cheese... nailed it").
• Scary Teeth: Constantine has bear trap-like metal teeth (which he somehow manages to keep retracted most of the time), which he uses to intimidate Fozzie, Walter, and Animal, and later to quickly chew his way out of a net during the finale.
• Self-Deprecation: Par for the course with any Muppet film.
  Dominic: I want every seat in the house filled. Give tickets away if you have to.
  Critic: Well, it's the Muppets. It won't be easy.
• Sequelitis: invoked Lampshaded to hell-and-back in the opening number, "We're Doing a Sequel". The first verse ends with "everybody knows that the sequel's never quite as good", and it only escalates (spirals downward?) from there.
  • Dr. Honeydew points out in the same song that this is actually "the seventh sequel to our original motion picture," though an argument can be made that the number is even higher should one count multiple Made-for-TV Movies.
  • On the other hand, it is the first Muppet film to pick up a previous entry's plot. So it's the ninth or so installment, but the first real sequel.
• Sequel Non-Entity: Even though the movie picks up immediately from where The Muppets left off, Gary and Mary disappear from the story and are never mentioned again, even by Walter who is Gary's brother and best friend.
• Sequel Reset: The Muppets (2011) ended with a big musical finale and a standing ovation... until the opening of this film:
  Scooter: So uh, what do we do now?
  Fozzie Bear: Well, we're together again. We got the theater and all our fans are back.
  Rowlf: Actually, those were extras.
  Fozzie: I saw a few tapping their toes.
  Scooter: Yeah, those were paid dancers.
  Fozzie: Oh.
• Shout-Out:
  • The sequel idea the Swedish Chef suggests during the opening number is really just The Seventh Seal.
  • Constantine watches footage from Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and The Muppet Movie to nail Kermit's voice down. The fact he studied the Street may also explain why he expects the Muppets to learn "something about sharing, or waiting your turn, or the number 3".
  • During the fight on the train, Constantine wears a metal mouthpiece and a bowler hat, trying to bite his confronters.
  • Kermit's cell, with its sexy Piggy poster hiding a partly-finished escape tunnel is awfully familiar. (Then again, Nadya says it's the first escape everyone tries.)
  • Nadya says goodnight to the gulag prisoners one by one, and they back to her, like The Waltons.
    Nadya: Goodnight, Danny Trejo.
  • The gulag audition montage is "I Hope I Get It" from A Chorus Line, even using Michael Bennett's original choreography.
  • The scene where Constantine attempts to steal the Crown Jewels reeks of Mission: Impossible complete with Dominic descending from the ceiling and doing acrobatics to avoid the moving lasers.
  • The poster contains a Shout-Out to Austin Powers: it shows Constantine mimicking Dr. Evil's signature hand gesture.
  • "The Big House" has a moment where the Gulag chorus are caught in the searchlights, mimicking the cover of Band on the Run by Wings.
• Skyward Scream: "KEEEEEEERMIIIIIIIIIEE!!!"
• Something Only They Would Say: Or not say in this case. The gulag inmates instantly realize it's not Constantine when Kermit thanks them for the improvised crown. Constantine never thanks anyone for things.
  • And again when Piggy identifies the correct frog as the one whose response to "Will you marry me?" is not a confident yes, but an inability to spit it out.
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: Yup.
• Spinning Paper: A series of British Newspapers announcing the wedding culminating in a copy of The Times which lampshades the News Monopoly with a headline about how it's such a slow news day the Muppets are getting the front pages. Other sequences start with the spinning, blurred newspaper, but end with a TV on which the Muppet Newsman reads a report.
• Squashed Flat: Fozzie, after posing as a bear-skin rug and having heavy luggage placed on top of him.
• Stalker Shrine: See also the trope entry below.
• Stalker with a Crush: It seemed Nadya quickly figured out Kermit wasn't the criminal that belonged in her gulag. But her Stalker Shrine to Kermit in her locker implies she had her own reasons for keeping him in her gulag.
• Super Gullible: The Muppets are extremely gullible in this scene where Dominic Badguy introduces himself by flashing his business card. Questioned about his strange surname he claims it's French and means "good man", which the Muppets swallow in a heartbeat.
• Take That!: Lyrics for "We're Doing a Sequel" that were cut from the theatrical version but remain in the soundtrack as well as the film's extended cut:
  Muppets: We're doing a sequel! How hard can it be?
  Rowlf: We can't do any worse than The Godfather III.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Jean and Sam at first, but it leaves them as dear friends by the time the film ends, and they exchange tearful goodbyes.
• The Dog Bites Back: Dominic TRIES to do this at the end of the film, putting up with Constantine's verbal abuse, but sadly Constantine saw it coming a mile away.
• The Starscream: Dominic does more of the heavy lifting and footwork on their caper while Constantine is rubbing in his face how he's a subordinate. No guesses for how Dominic planned to repay the treatment.
• Those Two Guys: Sam the Eagle and Jean-Pierre Napoleon.
• Trailers Always Spoil: A lot of the trailers and commercials showed bits and pieces of the wedding. One TV spot released at the very beginning of 2014 even had Miss Piggy in the background, visibly wearing a veil. Entirely justified, since that climax was where most of the action was, but it's still jarring and could also be a factor in the film's underperformance.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot:
  • Both Muppet and human characters have the apparent ability to transport themselves clear across Europe at the drop of a hat, while at other times their trips between locations are explicitly shown to take more than a day. See Artistic License – Geography for the absurd details.
  • Zig-zagged in the extended version, where Kermit makes an offhand comment that he has been in the gulag for months, explaining the plot. However, Fozzie, Walter and Animal are able to get from Dublin to Siberia and back again with Kermit in two days time, so not completely averted.
• Varying Competency Alibi: At the end of the "Interrogation Song" Sam and Jean Pierre realize the Muppets are too stupid to be behind the robberies.
  Jean Pierre: They're incapable of being culpable.
• Villain Decay: At the beginning, Constantine takes out a small army of armed Russian soldiers. By the end, Piggy simply grabs hold of him and thrashes him against the walls of his helicopter's cockpit. Of course, as Piggy says, he might be the world's most dangerous frog, but he's still just a FROG, and she has years of experience with aggravating amphibians.
• Villain Has a Point: Let's be honest here, Constantine isn't wrong when he dubs the Muppets "gullible fools".
• Villain Song: Constantine and Dominic have a Villain Duet with "I'm Number One [You're Number Two]" which is both about the bad guys' plan to pull off their heists and frame the Muppets, but Constantine reminding Dominic that he's nothing in Constantine's eyes.
  • Villain Love Song: Constantine sings "I'll Get You What You Want" to Miss Piggy to schmooze her in order to move his plan forward.
• The Voice: The prisoner inside the metal box in the gulag, who is only heard whenever his hatch is opened. He is finally let out in the end, played by Josh Groban.
• Waif-Fu: A male variant. Constantine takes out several guards during his prison break in a decidedly Black Widow -esque manner, despite weighing only as much as a two-and-a-half-foot-tall felt frog.
• Wham Line: Constantine (under his Kermit guise) proposes to Miss Piggy and announces the wedding to be held at the Tower of London in order to get make his ultimate heist on the Crown Jewels. But he doesn't plan to be married for long.
  Dominic: What will you do when you're married? Because then the pig will know everything.
  Constantine: Once she's served her purpose, kaboom. It will be bacon for breakfast.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Kermit calls out Walter and Fozzie for not noticing that Constantine had stolen his identity like Animal did.
  Kermit: You mean all this time I've been locked in a Russian gulag, no one - not one single person from the Muppets except Animal noticed I'd been replaced by an evil criminal mastermind?!
• Whole Costume Reference: Nadya's uniform was based on Anya Major's as the eponymous border guard in the video to Elton John's "Nikita".
• Why Didn't I Think of That?: When Walter tells Fozzie that Dominic has been bribing their audiences and critics into liking the show, Fozzie wonders why they'd never tried that before.
• Will They or Won't They?: Lampshaded by the Muppet Newsman, who calls Kermit and Miss Piggy one of the most famous "will they or won't they" couples in the Muppet world.
• With This Ring: The ring Constantine proposed with was also a bomb. Honeydew conveniently had Beaker in a bomb attracting suit, which resulted in a tug-of-war to get the ring off of Piggy before the bomb went off.
• Wrongful Accusation Insurance: Defied. Nadya goes to arrest Kermit after he leads the biggest prison breakout in Russian history, but she decides to let him stay free after seeing how devoted his friends were to him.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: What Constantine plans to do with Miss Piggy (and the rest of the Muppets) after the wedding. See Wham Line above.

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