Movie Review: ‘The Happytime Murders’

Review by Lauryn Angel

If you’ve seen Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles or Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx’s Avenue Q, the idea of puppets behaving badly is nothing new. With The Happytime Murders, director Brian Henson (yes, Jim Henson’s son) elevates the concept to a level that would make Miss Piggy blush.

Phil Phillips (voiced by Bill Barretta) is an ex-cop private investigator who keeps finding himself at murder scenes involving the cast of a ground-breaking puppet-human tv-show. Phil’s ex-partner, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy), is called to those scenes, and the two engage in hostile pranks and name-calling until Lieutennant Banning (Leslie David Baker) forces them to work together to find the killer.

The cast is composed largely of puppets, rounded out by a human cast including Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudolph, and Joel McHale. On one hand, the film is a gritty noir with stock features like the femme fatale and street thugs. On another, it’s a police drama that tackles issues of racism and drug use on the force. On a third hand (hey, some puppets have more than two hands), the movie seems to be pushing the envelope to see just how far it can go to prove that these are not the Muppets of our childhood – there’s a scene involving cow and octopus puppets that I will never forget.

It should go without saying that this movie is NOT for children. It’s rated R for a reason. There’s a lot of sex and violence, and the fact that these acts are committed by puppets does not make them any less graphic. There were quite a few gasps of shock in reaction to the first puppet murders, and I heard one person mutter, “that’s just going too far” during a scene set In a porn shop.

I absolutely loved The Happytime Murders. It’s gritty, filthy, and freakin’ hilarious. I won’t be eating rice pilaf any time soon, but I will definitely see this movie again.