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‘The Happytime Murders’:
A Guilty Pleasure
by Sandra Olmsted
The Muppets are back! But not for kids! Director Brian Henson’s ‘The Happytime Murders’ is a dark, violent, and disturbingly funny romp through the LA-based crime drama that spoofs and venerates the Sam Spade dramas. ‘The Happytime Murders’ also pays homage to ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ (1988) by showing humans and Muppets living together in a way that no other Muppet film ever has. After “thirty years of entertaining children,” the Muppets have gotten older and become a despised minority, and then a gangland murder at a Muppet porn shop throws disgraced ex-cop Phil Philips (voice of Bill Barretta) back together with his former partner, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy), who didn’t have Phil’s back.
While investigating a case brought to him by Sandra (voice of Dorien Davies), Private Eye Phil is in the back room of a Muppet porn shop when everyone else in the shop is blown apart at close range. Forced by his former boss, Lt. Banning (Leslie David Baker), to investigate with Connie, Phil immediately recognizes the crime as a hit but isn’t sure who was the target and who was collateral damage. Connie thinks it’s just a robbery gone wrong and scoffs at Phil and his ideas.
When Phil’s brother, who starred in a famous TV show with one of the porn shop victims, is murdered, Phil sets out to save the rest of the ‘Happytime’ cast. Meanwhile, Connie reveals her addiction to sugar, the drug of choice for Muppets, while she and Phil struggle to work together as they explore the seamy underbelly of LA’s Muppet community. Phil struggles against the prejudice against Muppets, and Connie must decide whether she really believes that Phil intentionally missed a shot at a Muppet. The missed shot lead to his and all Muppets being banned from the police force.
As the cast of ‘Happytime’ is picked off, somehow Phil is always there when the murders are committed, leading to him being a suspect. While on the run and witnessing old friends and lovers picked off one-by-one, Phil is pursued by FBI Agent Campbell (Joel McHale), who truly believes Phil is the killer. Meanwhile, Bubbles (Maya Rudolph), his devoted and long-suffering secretary, shares Phil’s desire to save the rest of the ‘Happytime’ cast, to exonerate himself, and to prove Muppets are people, too.
If anyone ever wondered what it was like to grow up with the Muppets as siblings because your father also created them, and now they can see the result of that experience. Director Brian Henson, the son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, has a definitely warped sense of a world inhabited by humans and Muppets. His film ‘The Happytime Murders’ might best be described as a nearly NC-17 version of ‘Fatal Attraction’ meets ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit.’ While no bunnies are boiled, a lot of Muppets are slain execution style, and yes, there is a new carpeted version of the scene in the police station and the prep in a short skirt and no undies.
Although the standard, boilerplate storyline and the front-loading of too many of the gags and shockingly funny scenes leave the film’s laughs feeling little forced by the end, the acting is actually pretty good and carries the comedy. McCarthy is over the top funny as the sugar-addicted cop; however, Rudolph leaves one wishing for more of her Bubbles character. Rudolph embodies that 1940s PI’s secretary at every turn and deadpan move. ‘The Happytime Murders’ and its dark, raunchy humor will find an audience in those looking for a bit of escape over the Labor Day weekend.
‘The Happytime Murders’ falls into the category of guilty pleasures, without a doubt, even though it is not the best Muppet film, in any sense of the word. In theaters now, ‘The Happytime Murders,’ a STXfilms release, is rated R for strong crude and sexual content and language throughout, and some drug material and runs a solid 91 minutes.
