The Appeal of Its Audacious Novelty Is Not Enough to Keep 'The Happytime Murders' From Losing Steam

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.