Unsophisticated and crude without purpose, “The Happytime Murders” is a massive failure on many levels.
When the actors from a popular children’s muppet-like television show start getting bumped off, disgraced former LAPD detective Phil Philips (voiced by Bill Barretta) and his ex-partner detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) are forced back together to solve the crimes. This leads the adversarial twosome into the soft underbelly of the puppet world, a place nothing like the wholesomeness that we’ve come to know and love. In time, there will be more murders and Phil and Connie will have to deal with past demons while confronting new ones.
The idea of an “R” rated muppet movie should have worked. It would take us into the world outside the cutesy one of which we are all well acquainted. Let the muppets use foul language. Let them copulate. The very thought of it is instantly funny. But figuring out the story to tell in that universe was critical to making this high (or low) concept successful.
To craft the right story, director Brian Henson, son of the late puppeteer Jim Henson, the visionary responsible for the muppet franchise, employed the writing talents of Todd Berger. The screenplay written by Berger is based on a story he wrote with Dee Austin Robertson. Neither Robertson nor Berger appear to have a prior, significant, creative connection to the muppet universe. And the characters in this film are not credited to anyone who have worked with muppets before. “The Happytime Murders” is its own separate island but makes use of puppets that would, at least, visually be at home in a muppet caper.
This foreign relationship with the beloved puppet world is clearly the first mistake made by Brian Henson. Sure, there would have been no realistic possibility of Kermit getting it on with Miss Piggy, but the detective yarn told in “Happytime” demonstrates little understanding of why the muppet movies worked in the first place. We get no musical numbers and few clever moments. It’s all broad vulgarity that’s not sexy and rarely funny.
Written as if a 14-year-old was told about detective stories and thought that dirty jokes coming out of puppets would alone hold audience attention, “The Happytime Murders” is scattershot, at best. The surprising thing is that most anything in the actual muppet canon is more mature than anything in this movie. Sure, there’s graphic muppet sex and cursing, but such uncouth material can’t cover a lack of understanding of how to reflect authentic relationships on screen. The magic of the muppet movies is that the best examples convince the viewer that the puppets are alive and we end of feeling something for them.
In “Happytime,” the script is in a rush to get to gross-out shocking moments instead of character development or world-building. The structure has no shape to it. There are flashbacks that arrive with little coherence, and there’s reliance on cardboard characters who fall for a tired series of jokes (made famous in far better movies—“Wayne’s World” comes to mind). And the best bits were spoiled by the trailers, particularly the red-band ones. Frankly, there’s nothing beyond the trailers worth seeing.
A good idea wasted on the wrong story, “The Happytime Murders” is an experiment that should have remained in the laboratory.