MUPPETS MOST WANTED 3.2***

 Somehow the world is just a better place with the Muppets in it. “Muppets Most Wanted” marks the eighth Muppet  movie and the second since their successful 2011 reboot “The Muppets.”

This new movie may not be as hip as the last one, which opened with a sarcastically sunny number and kept its ironic tongue in cheek throughout.  Instead, the new film feels a little more like a look back to earlier installments like "The Great Muppet Caper," which were less self-referential than just plain silly, with a variety of guest stars (mostly in cameos) fearlessly joining in the childlike fun.

The movie starts with a big production music number about sequels (which, it cheerfully admits, are "never as good"), then moves to a corny plot about an international master criminal ( Constantine), who just happens to be a dead ringer for Kermit. And in a flash there's a frognapping — and poor Kermit is off to a Russian prison (actually, a gulag) while the devilish Kermit look-alike Constantine is leading the Muppets on a European concert tour (which conveniently hits a string of cities with some begging-to-be-robbed museums).

Admittedly, most of the songs  go a little on too long and the movie itself is a little too long (just under 2 hrs.). But as the human villains, Ricky Gervais, as Constantine’s Number 2 accomplice, is surprisingly bearable and Tina Fey, as a Nadya, the Russian gulag warden, is very funny. And although some of the big celebrity cameos fall a little flat, most of them are delightful.

Of course it's the most fun for Muppets fans. But if you don't love the chipper Kermit, the self-involved Miss Piggy, the sweetly foggy Fozzie — not to mention the hard-to-explain Beaker, Animal and the Great Gonzo — well, please, sit over there, I don't think I quite trust you. But if you do — well, then you'll  be glad to see them back. And you’ll agree with Disney that — as long as they keep the quality up, and the guest stars coming back - it is easy being green. Or at least raking it in.

Clark