The Happytime Murders sadly fails to live up to the potential of its imaginative premise.
If one mentions the name Jim Henson, most people immediately think of The Muppets. And The Muppets are kind of a sacred thing to a lot of people my age. We grew up learning to read and write with the Muppets from Sesame Street. We were entertained by the Muppets on The Muppet Show. And some of us may have taken our own kids to see the Muppets in films like Muppet Treasure Island or Muppets from Space. So, seeing Jim Henson’s son, Brian direct a film with Muppet-like puppets that’s as profane as The Happytime Murders is probably going to be a jarring thing for some people.
The Happytime Murders takes place in a world where humans live side-by-side with Muppet-like puppets. The puppets are portrayed as being largely reviled by most people and are treated as second-class citizens. Many of them are addicted to sugar which they treat like a narcotic. (It’s an obvious allegory for racism but that angle is never developed, so it’s kind of pointless.)
Phil Philips (Bill Barretta) is an ex-cop turned private investigator. He’s also a puppet. He takes a case from a seductive female puppet named Sandra (Dorien Davies.) Sandra is being blackmailed for $350,000 by an unknown perpetrator. While investigating, Philips stumbles into a string of murders involving the cast of a 1990s sitcom, The Happytime Gang, which includes his brother and ex-girlfriend, Jenny (Elizabeth Banks.) Philips is paired up with his ex-partner, Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy.) There’s a lot of acrimony between them as she’s the reason he was kicked off the police force. They have to overcome their issues to solve the case.
If you’re thinking this doesn’t sound like a comedy, it’s because I haven’t mentioned the interminable amount of sex jokes (mostly involving puppets, bodily fluids, and fetish porn.) They’re not as offensive as often as they are simply not funny and that’s the biggest issue I had with The Happytime Murders. On those occasions where it is funny, it’s laugh-out-loud hilarious. Unfortunately, enduring the many comedic misfires is too much of a chore to be worth it. The film’s sole consistent comedic bright spot is Maya Rudolph and her character, Bubbles, Phil’s long-suffering secretary.
It’s too bad because, visually, the film is quite a treat. Henson and his crew of puppeteers do an amazing job of integrating the puppet and human characters. The individual performances of the puppets, especially Phil Philips, are exceptionally well-done. The green screen effects used to give the puppets extra mobility in long distance shots are impressive as well. (I had assumed that the scenes that showed full-figure puppets walking around were done with CGI or by using little people in puppet suits. Behind-the-scenes footage included in the credits shows how these effects were achieved.)
For all its technical prowess, The Happytime Murders sadly fails to live up to the potential of its imaginative premise.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
Buy on Amazon!
