Puppets, problems
A profanity-fueled comedy for grownups, ‘The Happytime Murders’ fails at its attempts to shock
If you’ve seen the extremely NSFW red band trailer for “The Happytime Murders,” you’d be forgiven for expecting this humans-and-puppets affair to offer so much outrageously raunchy material that you’d barely be able to catch your breath.
In reality, all that crudeness from the preview — from the parade of four-letter words to the over-the-top gag with Silly String that you can’t unsee — is there, but there isn’t all that much more of it in the movie.
We mostly have a warmed-over slice of film noir — “The Happytime Murders” essentially is “The Muppets”-meets-”The Maltese Falcons” with a bit borrowed “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and “Basic Instinct” — that, honestly, could have used more raunchiness.
Especially if it were going to offer so little in the way of cleverness.
“The Happytime Murders” certainly has the goods when it comes to puppetry. It is directed by Brian Henson — son of the late, great Muppet Master Jim Henson — and produced under the umbrella of Henson Alternative, a label of The Jim Henson Co. for content created specifically and exclusively for adults. (As should be very obvious by now, this is not a movie for little kids.)
There are a few how-did-theydo-that moments involving the puppets. And while the answer seems invariably to be that a puppeteer wore a full green-screen suit and was digitally removed in post-production, these nonetheless are neat tricks.
“The Happytime Murders” is set in an alternate version of Los Angeles in which humans and puppets co-exist, even if the latter folks are seen as second-class citizens by many of in the fleshy population.
“Although it’s not a crime to be warm and fuzzy,” muses heavysmoking puppet private investigator Phil Phillips (Bill Barretta) in the film’s opening narration, “it might as well be.”
The down, if not completely out, Phil was the first — and last — puppet cop in the city. Thanks to an incident in which it is suspected he purposely missed while firing his gun on a puppet suspect, an ordinance outlawing puppet officers was created and named after him. Now he’s on his own, although he’s still looking out for puppetkind. In an early scene, on his way into his office in the morning, he bullies some teens into giving a puppet back his eye.
“It’s too early for this crap,” he laments.
Next, into his office walks an alluring puppet, Sandra White (Dorien Davies), who tells Phil someone is squeezing her for a lot of money and hires him to investigate.
That quickly leads him to a store specializing in, well, veryadult fare for puppets. While there, he bumps into an old acquaintance and onetime celebrity, a bunny named Bumblypants (Kevin Clash) who was a member of once-popular “Happytime Gang” on the Puppet Television Network. During an apparent robbery that takes place while Phil is in a back room looking at store records, Bumblypants is killed.
However, when Phil’s brother, Larry (Victor Yerrid) — who portrayed Officer Shenanigans on the show — also dies, Phil fears someone is trying to take out the cast.
The case reunites him with his former police partner, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy), with whom no love is shared, at least at first. To crack this case, however, the pair of course will need to work together and trust each other.
While there are other notable cast members in “The Happytime “Murders,” including Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale and Elizabeth Banks — who portrays Jenny, the only human “Happytime Gang” cast member and Phil’s former lover — McCarthy does the heavy living among the humans in this film.
She is pretty funny, too. But, as with many of the big-screen comedy vehicles built for her, such as 2014’s “Tammy” and, to a lesser degree, this year’s “Life of the Party,” she doesn’t have the greatest script with which to work.
Penned by Todd Berger (“Cover Versions”), with a story by Berger and Dee Austin Robertson, “The Happytime Murders” offers too little in the way of creativity. Many of the decent laughs come courtesy of the actors working hard, such as a conversation between Edwards and Phil’s assistant, Bubbles (Rudolph), about whether Edwards every wears heels, a claim Bubbles very much doubts.
With less than 90 minutes of actual content — the behindthe-scenes/gag reel starts rolling over the credits after about an
hour and 20 minutes — you can’t charge “The Happytime Murders” with overstaying its welcome, exactly. But you can slap it for being shockingly bland so much of the time, considering it appears designed to shock. If you’re expecting something akin to “Team America: World Police,” the 2004 comedy from the “South Park” tandem of Trey Parker and Matt Stone that made use of marionnettes, you’re likely going to be disappointed.
You’d expect something more from Henson, chairman of the Jim Henson Co. and the director of 1992’s “The Muppet Christmas Carol” and 1996’s “Muppet Treasure Island.”
If you’re all in for a buddy-cop crime tale featuring Muppet-like puppets, then by all means see “The Happytime Murders.”
For many, though, the trailer should be enough. If not far too much.