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As the son of the creator of The Muppets—and now as the chairman of The Jim Henson Company—Brian Henson has been involved in several of the beloved movies and TV shows that many of us (and our children) grew up watching. But his latest film, The Happytime Murders definitely isn’t one for kids.
The Happytime Murders follows puppet private investigator Phil Philips (voiced by Bill Barretta) as a blackmail case turns deadly. When he tracks the case to Puppet Pleasureland, he ends up at the scene of a murder. After the second murder, Phil realizes that the killer is targeting the former cast members of a beloved children’s TV show. And in order to find the killer and try to save the rest of the cast, he’s forced to team up with his former partner, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy), who got him removed from the force years ago.
This action-comedy with puppets sets out to shock and amuse grown-up viewers of Sesame Street and The Muppet Show by taking something that was once sweet and innocent and fun and turning it into something entirely seedy. The world of the Happytime Gang is anything but cute and cuddly. In this sleazy world of murder, corruption, and discrimination against all of puppet-kind, most of the former children’s television stars lost their family-friendliness ages ago. They’re strippers and criminals and strung-out addicts. And that, of course, is the focus of the whole film.
Sure, there’s a mystery involved here, but it’s nothing new or especially interesting—and it’s just the vehicle for delivering the outrageous comedy. Fortunately, the buddy-cop aspect works relatively well, with the human/puppet duo working through their long-time feud and their personal issues as they work together on the case—and McCarthy is, for the most part, surprisingly restrained in her performance (which might not actually be the right choice for this kind of movie). But the real point of the movie is simply to be crude and outrageous—to take the kinds of characters that we loved as children and show their dark and disturbing side.
The success of the movie, then, is based on the success of the gimmick. And while some viewers might appreciate the ongoing seediness of it all, it simply isn’t especially funny—even from the beginning—and despite the film’s short runtime, it still manages to overstay its welcome.
The Happytime Murders does have a few moments that work, but it’s generally a one-note comedy. And even if you think that one note is pretty funny, it gets old quickly.
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