If you’ve considered seeing Muppets Most Wanted, indulge yourself but don’t hold out for another Muppets gold like we recently saw.

See, the thing about the Muppets is, of the twelve ‘official’ Muppet movies (reference), only four could arguably be defined as good (and yes, I leave plenty of space for negotiation on these): The Muppet Movie, A Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island, and The Muppets. (Right now my autocorrect is driving me bananas…) Is it therefore really a stretch to say that this movie, Muppets Most Wanted, is just plain bad? It’s not off-par for the Muppets—the reality is that the odds aren’t in their favor for making a good movie.

This isn’t to say, that you shouldn’t see it; of course you should take your children to enrich their lives with the schtick of olden times, and you can enjoy the exorbitant number of pop culture references, cameos, and occasional moments of acting clarity by some of the human cast (I personally thought Ty Burrell stole the show, aside from his musical number). There’s also a particularly poignant moment early in the film where the writers look squarely at the audience and say (in not so quite these words, since naturally there are young ears listening): “Why the fuck are we making this movie? They think this will make us money… Ha!”

Heard ya loud and clear, writers, and unfortunately I totally did just throw my money away to the Disney machine. I did just reinforce the reality that children’s movies can be made with an alarmingly (read: attention deficit-inducing) frenetic pace, with a terrible plot and script, an overabundance (read: over-reliance, question mark?) on digital effects. At the same time, I greatly enjoyed certain moments, and always find myself happy to be in the theater when the lights go down.