Sunday, August 26, 2018

The Happytime Murders Review

The Happytime Murders
Director: Brian Henson
 Cast Headliners: Bill Barretta, Melissa Mccarthy , Leslie David Baker, Maya Rudolph, literal puppets
Original Release Date: August 24th, 2018

One can't help but be intrigued by the premise and approach of The Happytime Murders. A very hard R-rated, adult crime comedy...about Muppets (including being directed by Brian Henson of The Henson Company itself!) … or rather, “puppets” and “Henson Alternative” producing to perhaps not steer families wrong into this. This mix of an innocent exterior and an extremely dark interior is where the most successes happen. Just as others may feel on it and to that point don't judge a puppet by its cover.
This world's fascinating conceit is that humanity and puppets live side by side. Allegories to race and class lie between specialized buildings , bigotry, and amusing things like sugar standing in for cocaine, glitter for feces, and fluff for carnage. The latter few may also hint at what height the brow is for most of this humor.
Yet it's also an attempt at a hard-boiled world. Detective Phil Phillips (Bill Barretta who like essentially all of the other puppet cast is both maneuvered and voiced by Muppet experts..one may know him as the legendary Swedish Chef, Rowlf the Dog, and Pepe the Prawn) finds himself investigating a case for Sandra Jakoby (Dorien Davies) that may go down a much deeper literal rabbit hole then he'd imagine. This soon leads him to start again with his ex-cop partner in human Detective Edwards (Melissa Mccarthy) which leads to many fierce words and jokes given the bias and past.
This movie is really, really adult. One may imagine that it was on intent given what the audience may want since may as well be as edgy as possible. That means most of the humor relies upon this contrast in ways both good and bad. Expect plenty of shootouts, murder, sex (oh so much of it..), and drugs filtered through a felt lense. The writing and script are a mixed bag which often repeats things which are hilarious the first time but a bit less so the second or fifth. However the rapport of characters remains a decent if not stellar element.
These shine through those puppets. Phillips is as grumpy as they get (including a token narrating track) but has his charms. Most puppet people involved in the plot involve the old “The Happytime Gang” sitcom stars (which may evoke memories, aside the setting , of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? In addition to Death To Smoochy). These include playboy Larry Shenangins (Victor Yerrid), drug-dealing Lyle (Kevin Clash), and whatever Goofer (Drew Massey) is. All give that trademark Henson sense of zaniness here feeling surreal in a gritty place.
The strong puppeteer element lies in both their acting as well as their literal movement. Brian Henson's direction is actually quite solid with shots intricately following characters and locations. They make momentary action scenes a bit of riveting (When they're not silly) and conversations feel grounded. If this was entirely a puppet murder mystery it could have been respected even further as a use of the medium. However, its ironic that the parts that feel most real drag it down.
The use of human actors is something of a tradition for these films. Mccarthy's Edwards handles the most of this. Her work tends to be very hit or miss with more landing in the “miss” end to this author. However, here she is slightly “not as generic” due to the situation around her. She is truly a mean-spirited character and this adds to her comebacks. This is not to mention when she does dip to her trademark mania which works in moments here. Together with Phillips they're a decent team together. Other humans such as girly proper secretary Bubbles (Maya Rudolph), gritty FBI Agent Campbell (Joel Mchale), and stripper Jenny (Elizabeth Banks) don't do much aside a joke or two (another Henson tradition..) Of possible exception is their Lieutenant Banning (Leslie David Baker better known as “Stanley from The Office TV series”) who has some quality dry responses.
The plot is not much that hasn't been done before and technically neither is the whole movie. However it's been awhile and not exactly like this. For one willing to handle its crudeness and amount of puppet (And specifically still somehow, muppetness) it's a decent silly time. 7.75 out of 10

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