“The Happytime Murders” is a comedy crime film produced by Henson Alternative Productions and directed by Jim Henson’s son Brian Henson. Released Aug 24, 2018. “The Happytime Murders” is not a film worth a watch in theatres.

Even though the movie has puppets, it clearly is a movie that is aimed at adults that like dirty comedies. The premise of the movie is a cliché of themes of cop films such as discrimination against puppets. Feuding cops with a long history. The main character who is no longer a cop, but PI, solves a case that is close to him. There’s also the cliché of the has been child actor.

In a world where both puppets and humans coexist there is hatred among the puppets in such a way that it’s more discriminatory.

The movie starts with narration from the main character puppet named Phil Phillips (Bill Barretta), a cop who was not only the first puppet to ever work for the LAPD, but also the last. Still living in LA, he is a private investigator with his own firm. He is tasked with working a case for a puppet named Sandra who is being blackmailed for some of her sexual tendencies.

From there the movie gets more into murders that are happening to specific puppets, and Phil just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The reason that the murders are named “The Happytime Murders” is due to the fact that each puppet being murdered was part of a show from many years ago called The Happytime Gang. After the first murder, Phil ends up working with his former partner in the LAPD Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy). The movie shows the history between the two whom at first cannot get along to work the case, and toward the end rebuild their relationship. The main goal is to find the murderer and the motive for the murders, which is revealed at the end of the film.

There are quite a few live action characters peppered within the movie such as Maya Rudolph who plays Phil’s secretary Bubbles. She shows she has some feelings toward Phil. Other actors include Elizabeth Banks who played the only human actor on The Happytime Gang show named Jenny who ends up working in a strip club also was also Phil’s former love. Joel Mchale even has an appearance as an FBI agent who was tasked to look into the murders. He points to Phil for the murders.

What made this movie horrible was the way things were executed. “The Happytime Murders” kills itself with bad dialogue. The filmmakers focused more on the comedy than the story. There was so much cliché to the movie that it felt overdone many times.

There is even a scene that talks about two of the Happytime Gang members who were cousins are now married with children. They seemed to have tried to get comedy cursing puppets who are put in sexual situations with the puppets as well. In one scene they used a silly string as puppet ejaculate. There were hardly any laughs to have been had while sitting through this movie. Plus, they made a twist to the movie that in some way could have been foreshadowed in the first few minutes. The only good part was the ending when they show how they maneuvered the puppets to make it seem as if they were really alive.