Review – The Happytime Murders
I’m so confused as to what in the actual hell I just watched. The Happytime Murders is a movie that makes zero sense. It makes no sense in it’s tone, it makes no sense in it’s logic, it makes no sense that it was made. It was truly one of the most mind-boggling film-going experiences I’ve had in 2018.
And you’re probably thinking, “Kevin, it’s a movie with puppets, why are you thinking so hard about it?” Here’s the thing, I usually wouldn’t think too hard about a movie like this. From the advertisements, this looked like a raunchy cop comedy with puppets and couple humans that focused on the “not your fathers puppets” aspect of the film.
But that isn’t The Happytime Murders at all. This is a movie that is far too serious. All the raunchy stuff that was shown in the trailers is what is in the film, and that is it. The rest of the movie almost a true film noir, about a disgraced former puppet cop, now private investigator Phil Philips (voiced by Bill Barretta) who teams up with his former partner, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) to solve a string of murders in Los Angeles. This movie is noir 101, with twists, femme fetals, good cops, bad cops, infinite cigarettes being smoked, and an overall interesting mystery behind it all. Because of how serious the film takes itself and it’s plot, my mind immediately looked at this movie differently, and boy, was it a tough experience.
The world we are in in The Happytime Murders is a world where puppets and humans exist as one, yet humans aren’t fans of puppets. The puppets in the film smoke, drink, have sex, die via gunshot wound, feel pain, and have a hospital specifically dedicated to curing puppets. Oh, and the most sought out drug, by both human and puppet, is sugar. Here are some of the questions I had while watching this movie:
How does a puppet die via gunshot when they’re only made of cotton?
Has the cotton been manipulated in every puppet to make them feel and act like a human? If so, what was that experiment like?
How do puppets smoke and drink when the back of the mouth is closed?
Why are humans snorting sugar? I don’t think that’ll get anyone high.
Do the doctors at the puppet hospital fix the puppets just by re-stuffing them? Or are there actual puppet organs that are used and how do those work?
What are the logistics of puppet sex? Yes, this is question I was actually thinking of.
These are just a few of the questions I had watching this dumb, unfunny movie. I have to commend McCarthy and Elizabeth Banks, who plays a stripper, for going all out in trying to give decent performances while acting with puppets. And again, I liked the overall plot of the film. I just don’t understand why they acknowledged that the puppets were puppets. It would have been way funnier and more enjoyable had the puppets been treated like humans as opposed to puppets, because then the logical aspect would have been thrown out the window and the bizarreness of the movie would have set in.
Instead, I am sitting here wondering how a puppet bunny pees glitter. *Sigh*.
