Movie Review: The Happytime Murders

The Happytime Murders * / *****

Directed by: Brian Henson.

Written by: Todd Berger and Dee Austin Robertson.

Starring: Melissa McCarthy (Connie Edwards), Elizabeth Banks (Jenny), Maya Rudolph (Bubbles), Joel McHale (Agent Campbell), Leslie David Baker (Lt. Banning), Bill Barretta (Phil Philips), Mitch Silpa (Tommy), Colleen Smith (Cara), Barry Rothbart (Porn Fireman), Dorien Davies (Sandra), Pamela Mitchell (Topaz), Brian Palermo (Paramedic Mark), Drew Massey (Goofer – Vinny), Allison Bills (Carol), Victor Yerrid (Larry / Old Man / Catfish).

 

I really am at a loss for words on how The Happytime Murders could end being as awful a film as it is. Seriously, profanity spewing puppets who have sex and kill each other in explosions of fluff should be good for some laughs – and that’s before you add in a human star as consistently hilarious as Melissa McCarthy normally is. It’s an even a play on film noir, which is right up my alley, so it’s really a mystery as to how this film can be this remarkably awful.

 

The film takes place in L.A., and the main character is a former cop, now P.I., named Phil Philips (Bill Barretta), a three foot, blue puppet who was once the first – and only – puppet on the force. He was drummed out though when he missed a shot –and everyone, including his partner Connie Edwards (McCarthy) thought that “puppets won’t shoot their own kind”. Now he works as a P.I. – standing up for puppets, in a city where they are treated like second class citizens. His latest case starts as a blackmail case, when a puppet shows up with a note, and leads into a series of brutal murders of the cast members of the famous ‘90s sitcom – The Happytime Gang – right before they’re all going to get paid because of a syndication deal. One of those puppets is Phil’s own brother. Of course, Phil ends up re-partnered with Connie to solve the brutal killings.

 

The film was directed by Brian Henson – some of Jim – who knows a thing or two about puppets, and making movies. He directed the best Muppet movie – A Muppet Christmas Carol (that I watch every Christmas with my family), and while the puppets here are not Muppets, they might as well be – they certainly look like they could be. I am always amazed at the work puppeteers do to bring these characters to life – and if you want to say something good about the movie it would be that I don’t think you can blame them for the problems in the film.

 

The problem really stems for the fact that it seems like everyone involved thought that simply having puppets spew profanity, and have sex and explode in a cloud of fluff when shot, was inherently funny by themselves. I know that one of the inspirations for the film was Peter Jackson’s first film – Meet the Feebles, a profane take on the Muppet Show, that has one of the stars be a sex addict dying of AIDS, and had the tagline “Hell Hath No Fury Like a Hippo with a Machine Gun”, which gives you an idea on what Jackson was up to back then. I always liked Meet the Feebles – but even that film admittedly runs a little out of steam as it goes along (at least until the finale, which has the aforementioned hippo and machine gun). The Broadway musical Avenue Q had a similar outlook – a profane, sex drenched version of Sesame Street – and that was brilliant from beginning to end.

 

What both Meet the Feebles and Avenue Q have that The Happytime Murders doesn’t have though is something beyond the initial premise to make it funny. Yes, they both know that the sight of puppets fucking is funny – but they don’t just leave it at that.  The Happytime Murders is nothing more than a concept. I wouldn’t say the film is lazy – again, the work that goes into making those puppets work onscreen is anything but lazy – but it’s certainly lazily written and not thought through. You need to give the characters something to do or say that is also funny, not just swear, fuck and kill each other. I admire the cast, who give it their all – in particular McCarthy and Elizabeth Banks – even though they had to know this wasn’t going to work. And boy, does it ever not work. This is easily the worst film I have seen this year so far – and remember, I saw Show Dogs.