Review: The Happytime Murders

Image courtesy of STX Films

If you thought that foul mouthed senior citizens ("Bad Grandpa") were riotous and potty mouthed cartoons ("Sausage Party") caused you to spit out your drink, well, you're most likely the target audience for "The Happytime Murders," which is, yes, a movie in which puppets curse, have sex, take drugs and engage in all other manner of R-rated behavior.

The thing is, it's not particularly funny. No, it's not funny when the cute little bunny character gets busted in an adult video store with some kinky porn on his possession, nor is it particularly amusing when another puppet is high on smack. There are also not one, but two, instances in which a female puppet reenacts Sharon Stone's infamous scene from "Basic Instinct," and there's another gag involving a male puppet's orgasm that results in puppet semen being sprayed all over the walls of a room.

The problem with the film is that, much like the movies about the foul mouthed seniors, it relies on one single joke: puppets behaving badly, which just isn't that funny. There have been other films in years past in which animated characters (for example, Robert Zemeckis' groundbreaking "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?") interact with humans, and even other pictures involving sleazy puppet behavior ("Meet the Feebles," which, let's be honest, wasn't very good either).

In the film, ex-cop puppet Phil (the voice of Bill Barretta) finds himself taking a case after a vixen visits his office, but is soon sidetracked after his brother and several other puppets who were characters on an old kids' show known as "The Happytime Gang" are murdered. He is forced to team up with his ex-partner, Detective Edwards (Melissa McCarthy), with whom he had a falling out some years before, and the two spend much of the film's first half bickering.

Regardless, more puppets wind up dead, and Phil and Edwards find themselves potential suspects because of course they do. While the concept of mixing human actors with puppets may be slightly - and I do mean slightly - novel, the film's story dredges up some creaky cliches of detective movies of yesteryear. In fact, I found the interactions between the film's humans - most notably the teamwork between McCarthy's detective and Bubbles (Maya Rudolph), Phil's plucky secretary - to be more interesting than the scenes involving the puppets.

There are a few brief moments in which it appears that the filmmakers are going to use the human-puppet divide to make some sort of commentary on prejudice, but that theme is quickly tossed aside for more jokes about drug abusing or sexually aroused puppets. The film was made by Brian Henson, the son of Jim Henson, and one of the puppeteers is Kevin Clash, one of Elmo's original handlers, so the ingredients for a good film were there. But, ultimately, "The Happytime Murders" is a pretty big misfire.