Aug
29
1.23pm

HYSTY MOVIE HOUSE // The Happytime Murders


According to Jim Henson’s son Brian, The Muppets were really targeted at adults. It’s easy to forget that outside of the wholesome lessons of Sesame Street is an anarchic felt-skinned crew prone to cartoonish sex and violence (The Muppet Show was originally titled Sex And Violence).

With The Muppets’ more recent work lacking that sex and violence, Brian brings it back tenfold for The Happytime Murders, but sadly lacking the enjoyment of his father’s work.

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The film’s gritty intentions are made known early when puppet private investigator Phil Philips (Bill Barretta) first appears, dragging a cigarette before punching a kid for harassing another puppet. Philips was once the first puppet police officer and his disgraceful dismissal made sure he was the last. As the cast of the sitcom The Happytime Gang are picked off one-by-one, Philips is forced to work with his former-partner Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) to catch the killer.

The Happytime Murders undoes the comedy legacy of The Muppets by not being remotely funny.

It’s a familiar plot that’s been repeated across decades of hardboiled crime fiction, and The Happytime Murders follows the genre’s beats very closely – femme fatales, gravelly-voiced narration, red herrings, etc. Inserting puppets into this world should differentiate it from other crime films, and small touches do make it interesting – stuffing in lieu of blood splatter; puppets cowering from playful dogs. However, the gimmick quickly wears thin, rising to a low peak in a puppet-run sex shop featuring a cow being lactated by an octopus. That image is as adventurous as the film gets, with the rest not even attempting to grab the audience’s attention.



The grittiness is undermined by the presence of colourful puppets, but that should mean comedy would abound. Unfortunately, The Happytime Murders undoes the comedy legacy of The Muppets by not being remotely funny. In lieu of jokes, the film begs for unearned laughs with pathetic tough-guy banter and hacky attempts at gross-out humour. Puppets and filth go well together, as seen in Team America and especially Peter Jackson’s hilariously gag-inducing Meet The Feebles, but The Happytime Murders comes nowhere near those films.

The only redeeming feature of The Happytime Murders comes during the end credits showing behind-the-scenes action. It’s amazing to watch the puppets come to life in the puppeteers’ hands and how the film was crafted, displaying their technical know-how. But, as admirable as those skills are, they are wasted on such a poor film like The Happytime Murders.

The Happytime Murders is in cinemas now.

DIRECTOR: Brian Henson
PRODUCER: STX Entertainment
CAST: Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, Joel McHale
RATING: 3/10 – Watch Meet The Feebles instead.

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