The Happytime Murders – Film Review
The Happytime Murders aims for shock value, laughs, and a fun time. Unfortunately, the film is not funny nor fun. What’s shocking though is how bad it truly is.
In a world where puppets and humans live on Earth, a detective named Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) goes on a journey to find out who is murdering a large portion of puppets.
The Happytime Murders wants to make you laugh; and desparately, too. However, not once during the film’s entire running time, did I laugh once. I actually thought the trailer looked okay, and was interested in seeing what the filmmakers what do. What they did in the end, was create a boring, and unfunny mess.
Melissa McCarthy as Connie Edwards in The Happytime Murders (2018)
All the characters were underdeveloped, and I did not care for a single one of them. It seems as if the film’s writer wanted to get as many people in the theatre to laugh, and forget about the story of the film, which is extremely lazy.
Another thing I did not appreciate was the fact that this film only went for shock value humor and did not have any jokes that weren’t in that nature. It felt as if the screenwriter Todd Berger set out to make the raunchiest film possible, but wanted it to also include puppets to create a stark contrast. While he certainly did have that contrast come alive, it is definitely not welcomed. I get the feeling that a large portion of the movie’s humor is aimed towards teenagers, but not even they will laugh at this over-the-top and soulless film.
The acting in the film, particularly by McCarthy, was also not good. She feels extremely wooden and stiff here. Watching her character Connie Edwards was a humongous chore. We are never once given any insight as to why she would partner up with a puppet to solve crime together. She never really seems all that shocked that these puppets are very much alive and are extremely dirty-minded. The character development here is nonexistent. It honestly seemed as if McCarthy herself hated starring in this film.
The Happytime Murders is an extremely unfunny, boring, and poorly written film that misses every opportunity. Not even the performances can save this from being a supremely raunchy and unfunny mess of a movie.
Overall Grade: D
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong crude and sexual content and language throughout, and some drug material
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Joel McHale, Elizabeth Banks
Directed by: Brian Henson
Distributed by: STX Entertainment
Running Time: 91 minutes