By Robert Scucci
| Published
As a huge fan of Team America: World Police and Avenue Q, I was beyond excited when I stumbled upon The Happytime Murders, a raunchy action neo-noir crime mystery comedy with puppets, while scrolling through the Netflix catalogue. I almost started shaking when I learned that Brian Henson, the son of the legendary Jim Henson, directed The Happytime Murders because I was expecting fantastic puppet design that would at the very least make his father, the OG, proud.
While I have zero complaints about the puppet movements and their voice-acting, The Happytime Murders is ultimately a disappointment because it has everything it needs to be an effective comedy, but constantly trips over itself to get its point across.
Puppets Versus Humans
In a world where puppets and humans are mostly segregated, The Happytime Murders introduces us to hard-boiled puppet private eye, Phil Phillips (Bill Barretta), a former cop who previously worked alongside Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy).
Phil was the first puppet allowed on the police force, but his tenure came to an end after a botched rescue resulted in the death of an innocent man 12 years prior. Working as a solo practitioner, Phil is approached by Sandra (Dorien Davies) to figure out who’s blackmailing her for $350, which makes no sense because she’s willing to pay Phil $300 a day, plus expenses, to solve the case, when she could have just as easily afforded to pay the blackmailer and move on with her life.
Meanwhile, puppet cast members of The Happytime Gang are slowly getting killed off by an unknown assailant, resulting in Lt. Banning (Leslie David Baker) hiring Phil as a consultant to work alongside Connie, who wants nothing to do with him after the incident that got him fired from the force in the first place.
The Beats Are All There
At face-value, The Happytime Murders has all the trappings for a solid raunchy crime comedy, but somehow falls apart because it’s missing one element that would truly make it a next-level satire. As Mr. Bumblypants (Kevin Clash), Phil’s brother and star of The Happytime Gang Larry (Victor Yerrid), Lyle (Kevin Clash, again), and Goofer (Drew Massey) get systematically wiped out under increasingly suspicious circumstances, there’s no shortage of creative kills that will leave you in stitches (pun intended), but there simply isn’t enough on-screen chemistry to keep that energy consistent throughout the film.
This is especially disappointing when we learn the reason behind the murders early on: The Happytime Gang is going into syndication, huge payouts are about to be made to its principal cast, and somebody is trying to reap the benefits by cashing out on their legacy by making sure they never get those checks; it’s an inherently compelling story and a supremely fun mystery to be involved with as a viewer.
Melissa McCarthy is perfect for the role of Detective Connie Edwards in The Happytime Murders, and her performance is commendable, but the energy she exudes is ultimately unmatched by her puppet counterparts, and her superior, Lt. Banning, who does nothing more than flatly deliver his lines. During heated, profanity-filled exchanges between Detective Connie Edwards and Phil Phillips, the most you’ll get out of Lt. Banning in his efforts to deescalate the situation is “come on now,” when he should be barking orders about how the mayor’s going to have his ass if they don’t do things by the books, or some other perfectly cliché line that would work in this context.
Disappointing, But A Solid Proof Of Concept
As much as I wanted to love The Happytime Murders, it’s simply too all over the place to be enjoyable. The sexually driven puppet scenes (you’ll know them when you see them) are hilarious on their own because they’re so over-the-top and disgusting, but don’t necessarily drive the storytelling forward. Melissa McCarthy commands every single scene she’s in, but none of her human co-stars seem to follow her lead and match her enthusiasm. And when you put it all together, you get a mess of mismatched delivery and jokes that don’t land because the energy between the people saying them is inconsistent.
As a proof of concept, The Happytime Murders is a valiant effort, and I’d love to see the cast and crew get a second chance because there are some genuine laugh-out-loud moments throughout the film. On this go-around, however, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
As of this writing, The Happytime Murders is streaming on Netflix.
