I like puppets. I like raunchy humour. I apparently do not like the two together. Brian Henson, son of Jim Henson is back with The Happytime Murders, a film that is "No Sesame. All Street," centering around a world in which humans and puppets coexist. In this film we see washed up former puppet cop turned private officer Phil Phillips investigating a series of murders surrounding the cast of "The Happytime Gang," the first show to feature both puppets and humans alongside one another. Phillips re-teams with his old partner to try to solve the case before every member of the show is killed.
Since the movie is very raunchy and has a well earned R-rating, I feel as though I can be a bit colourful with my language here. This movie fucking sucks. When it comes to a film like this one of the main things I look for is world-building. I wanted to go into this and see a unique world of puppets and humans coexisting and the weird social order that may arise from it. Instead the world was barely developed and went for a generic play on racism that didn't work rather than explore interesting ideas. Seeing these puppets doing and saying inappropriate things is funny at first, but the gimmick wears off very quickly, similarly to how things went in Sausage Party. The mystery in the film is surprisingly kind of interesting at times, but it gets really boring from time to time. The comedy works at times, but other times just comes across as trying too hard to be funny and edgy and it falls painfully flat. If you're the kind of person that loves to see great visuals in a film, don't worry, you'll be disappointed too. This film's cinematography and set/costume design is bland and boring, offering little to no visual pleasure. So from a technical standpoint this film has pretty much nothing going for it.
The film isn't all bad, as I liked some of the cast a fair bit. Melissa McCarthy is her usual self so she didn't impress me much, but the ensemble was rounded out by actors such as Maya Rudolph, Elizabeth Banks, and Leslie David Baker. None of them did exceptional work but made the film a bit more enjoyable through their performances. I will say, Bill Barretta's voice acting for Phil did impress me a lot, bringing to life this down and depressing puppet cop. I thought out of everyone involved in the film that he did the best work.
If you liked Sausage Party you might like this film's raunchy take on something typically geared towards children. If you didn't however, you'll likely find this to be a bland film with a shtick that gets tired very quickly.
Rating: 1.3/5
Written by Matt McKenzie
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