Take Team America, Ted, and The Muppets, throw them all together in a blender and then set fire to the giant fluffball and you’ll have The Happytime Murders. A film that single-handedly ruins just about everything Jim Henson created and makes for one hell of an awful feature film.
This noir focused film centers on Phil, once a muppet in the LAPD force (in a world where humans and muppets live in harmony) who was sent into early retirement after a mishap in the field. Now a private investigator Phil is landed with the case of The Happytime killings.
A figure who is killing off each muppet character from a hit sitcom and thus the shitshow commences.
Melissa McCarthy plays Phil’s former partner on the force who teams up with Phil on this particular case as they’re sent on a whirlwind adventure of sex jokes, more sex jokes, muppet sex acts and snorting sugar highs (a muppets go-to drug of choice).
What I will say about this film is that you soon forget that it’s puppet and human. You can clearly see they’re puppets but the voice-over performance of Phil’s character is superbly done to make us as an audience feel empathy for a glorified sock. Laughs are few and far between resorting to very simple-minded jokes but there is one particular scene in Phil’s office with a seductive little muppet that had me crying my eyes out.
I’m a sucker for a smutty joke but this one really hit home and for that reason, I’ll give the review an extra half a star for bringing tears to my eyes for a brief second.
That humor quickly becomes dull as it feels forced at every opportunity as to convince the audience that the film is telling a darker more sinister muppet tale. But none of the film’s plot, acting or just about anything on the screen is worth any note. It’s a one-trick pony that is amusing for all of five minutes.
Aside from Mission Impossible, it’s been a horrible year for studio cinema and this was the furry icing on top of a terribly tasting cake.
Roll on 2019!
-
The Happytime Murders
Summary
As awful as any film i’ve ever seen. The Happytime Murders takes a steaming sh*t on Jim Henson’s creation and turns it into a low-rent, low-budget uninspiring disaster. Resorting to smutty jokes and repetitive garbage The Happytime Murders may just be the worst studio film of the last decade.
