The Happytime Murders

Official Australian release date: 23/8/18. Viewed: 24/8/18.

Director: Brian Henson

Actors: Bill Baretta, Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Elizabeth Banks

Genre: Comedy

Rating: MA

   

‘The Happytime Murders’ tries to do what ‘Team America’ did – mixing puppets and adult humour – but ultimately fails. Sure, there’s some credibility being that it’s directed by Jim Henson’s son, but while the puppets all look like ‘Muppets’ knock-offs, there’s no Muppet joy or sense of fun. The plot is that Phil (Baretta – the voice of Pepé from the Muppets) has to work with his ex-cop-partner, Edwards (McCarthy) to solve the murders of the former stars of “Happytime” TV show.

The cast is good – Bubbles (Rudolph), Phil’s the secretary, jerk FBI Agent Campbell (McHale), the Lieutenant (Baker) & Phil’s ex-girlfriend Jenny (Banks) – but mostly underutilised. The main issue is the writing – there’s some jokes, but just not many funny ones, unfortunately. A lot of the humour resorts to the puppets swearing or doing something gross, which isn’t shocking anymore – not after ‘Sausage Party’!   

Melissa McCarthy’s OK, but doesn’t really have that much to do, the actual murders they’re solving are very predictable, so it ends up not working as a cop film or a comedy. There’s some message in there about sugar being the worst drug of all, but it’s glossed over. Since I didn’t laugh more than a couple of times throughout it’s very short runtime, I can’t rate this very highly, since that’s it’s main job – to make me laugh.

Overall: Failed attempt at subversion

Gav's Rating: 2 stars.