The Happytime Murders is a neo-noir black comedy film set in a
world in which sentient puppets co-exist with humans. It follows a puppet private detective named
Phil Phillips (voiced and operated by Bill Barretta) who is forced to team up with
human police detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy), his former partner whom he had a falling out with when he was still a cop, in order to
catch a serial killer who is targeting the former cast members of an old puppet sitcom called The Happytime Gang.
I love Jim Henson’s style of puppet
entertainment. I had been a fan of Sesame Street, The Muppets, and Fraggle Rock
at different points of my life. I’ve
been disappointed that Disney never really did something big with The Muppets after acquiring the property
other than a pair of good but unmemorable movies and a revival show, whose
cancellation after one season I lamented.
And I’m frustrated when I see kids these days seemingly impervious to
the wondrous appeal of Muppetry.
Thus, The Happytime Murders is kind of a bastardization to this
particular part of my childhood. But at
the same time, the idea of “Muppets for adults” is kind of genius. There’s just something morbidly hilarious
about puppets performing gritty, grown-up behavior like spewing profanities;
engaging in drugs, alcohol, gambling, and sex; and blowing each other’s brains – or, in
their case, stuffing – out.
And, indeed, the charm of its
novelty was in full power early on. I
was kept engaged and amused, and was consistently chuckling and laughing at the
gags. Unfortunately, the first couple of
minutes were the strongest stretch of the movie. As it went on, the chuckles and laughs became
few and far between. Maybe the quality of
the rest of the movie was just not as good as its opening minutes. Or maybe the charm of its novelty grew weaker. Either way, the movie started losing steam
surprisingly fast.
Furthermore, the story is
bumpy. There are certain elements that
are in it just because. For example, the
riff that happened between Phillips and Edwards doesn’t make a lot of sense to
me since it felt inconsistent to their characterizations (SPOILERS: Edwards was
never portrayed as prejudiced against puppets.
Why would she then think that Phillips missed on purpose?). It’s as if the writers just want to have this
tension between the two main characters existing in their dynamic, but never
really gave careful thought on making a compelling cause for it. Another is establishing early in the movie
the detail that, in this world, puppets are second-class citizens. However, this point never goes anywhere at all. Thus, it leaves the impression that the
writers was trying to do some “social commentary” for a while, but weren’t able to figure
out a thoughtful execution for it.
In the end, there’s some entertainment
to be had from The Happytime Murders,
which is almost entirely hinged on its audaciously original premise. Other than this, it has nearly nothing else
to offer. Which is a shame, really. Something special could have probably been created
from it if it had been accompanied by a wittier vision.
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