The Happytime Murders review

THE HAPPYTIME MURDERS:

TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE MEETS SAUSAGE PARTY, MINUS THE LAUGHS!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: * ½ out of 4

STX FILMS

Melissa McCarthy and Phil Phillips in The Happytime Murders

            I remembered back in 2016 when I first saw the trailer for the R-rated animated comedy, Sausage Party and despite being drawn in by its odd-looking premise, I thought it would just be another raunchy comedy relying on nothing but shock humor. But after seeing the movie it completely surpassed my expectations and was a surprisingly clever allegory to racism and cultural awareness, coming from a movie featuring a foul-mouthed, pot smoking sausage voiced by Seth Rogen.

            Besides talking sausages and food mascots, there’s been several other films revolving around racism and discrimination without actually using race, most notably movies like Who framed Roger Rabbit, the X-Men franchise, and District 9. Now director and puppeteer, Brian Henson (The Muppet Christmas Carol, Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets Tonight), the son of the legendary, Jim Henson, attempts to do the exact same thing with humans and puppets in the buddy-cop black comedy, The Happytime Murders.

            Again, puppet cops are not an original concept, sorry Henson but South Park creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone already beat you to it with Team America: World Police in 2004. Nevertheless, I was still interested in seeing it when I saw the trailers and as far as I know this marks the Jim Henson Company’s first venture into adult-oriented material, could be good or it could be terrible.

            Sadly, it’s the latter and aside from a few laughs the movie wastes its interesting premise in favor of an overabundance of cheap gross-out humor and a desperate urge to flaunt its R rating. Yes, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Team America: World Police, and Sausage Party had a lot of nasty and vulgar material, but they weren’t throwing it at the screen every chance it got, they still established their environments, characters, story, and laughs first.

            Here it feels like the writers had a clever concept and characters down but had a hard time writing jokes, so they decided to give up and go straight for the American Pie style gross-out and shock humor. And I wouldn’t mind that if it was funny, but it isn’t.

            Set in a world where puppets coexist with humans, the film follows two clashing detectives in Los Angeles, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy-Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy) and ex-cop turned private investigator, Phil Phillips (voice and puppetry by Bill Barretta-Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets from Space, The Muppets (2011)) being forced to work together to solve a case involving the murders of the former cast of a beloved puppet television show known as The Happytime Gang. These two bitter detectives must put aside whatever feuds they had with each other, find the culprit behind these gruesome murders of puppets, and bring him/her to justice in a society where puppets are discriminated against by humans, it’s like a realistic depiction of Sesame Street (Boy that’s a cold blow).

            The film also stars Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live, Bridesmaids, Sisters) as Phil’s secretary, Bubbles, Joel McHale (The Soup, Community, Ted) as “F*ckin’ Big Idiot”, Agent Campbell, Elizabeth Banks (Spider-Man trilogy, The Hunger Games franchise, Pitch Perfect trilogy) as burlesque dancer, Jenny, Leslie David Baker (The Office) as Lieutenant Banning, Kevin Clash (Sesame Street, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey) as Lyle, Drew Massey (Greg the Bunny, Muppets Tonight, Crank Yankers) as Goofer, newcomer, Dorien Davies as Sandra, Alice Dinnean (Sesame Street, The Puzzle Place, Bear in the Big Blue House) and Donna Kimball as puppet prostitutes, Sheila and Diane AKA the Rotten Cotten Girls, Henson as Crab, Alan Trautman (Dinosaurs, Muppets Tonight, The Adventures of Timmy the Tooth) as Octopus, and Victor Yerrid (Crank Yankers, Robot Chicken, Greg the Bunny) as Phil’s older brother, Larry Shenanigans Phillips.

            Overall, The Happytime Murders is an interesting idea with a lot of comedic potential completely wasted for cheap gags and this bitter mean-spirited tone all throughout the film. Sometimes it can pay off like with Team America: World Police, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and Sausage Party as mentioned before where a lot of it relies on crude and raunchy humor, vulgar material, and dark comedy but they were done with a lot of thought and understanding of how to execute this absurd content properly.

            Long before Trey Parker and Matt Stone made Team America: World Police they had a lot of experience in adult entertainment with South Park, Orgazmo, and Cannibal: The Musical. They knew how to take these raunchy, mean spirited themes and give them a comedic edge, I appreciate what Henson was trying to do with this movie but he’s kind of a newcomer when it comes to this kind of material, not to mention he doesn’t have any other existing adult-oriented movies or shows to compare it to.

            The humor suffers from the same problem as modern Family Guy episodes where the story and characters take a backseat for cheap gags and jokes that offend just for the hell of it without generating many laughs. Hopefully Brian Henson and his crew will be able to take better notes for a future adult puppet project because there is potential in The Happytime Murders’ story for both comedy and allegories for realistic themes.

            It isn’t one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, but with a fascinatingly odd concept like this being wasted for its low-brow humor that only the lowest common denominator would find complete enjoyment of is a huge disappointment. I love Jim Henson, I love the Muppets, and I love risqué humor if it’s done right, but man, what a rocky start for R-rated Muppet projects?

            Unless you’re high and drunk at the same time 24/7, I’d recommend skipping it, but if you do decide to see it, leave the kids at home. In fact, any parent who decides to bring their little kids to this movie should be arrested for child abuse.