Review of The Happytime Murders (2018) by Candle R — 24 Aug 2018

I somehow made it through 45 long, painful minutes before giving up on this monstrosity of a movie and walking out.

I have a great appreciation for Melissa McCarthy's quippy and crass humor. I pre-purchased tickets and looked forward to seeing what I fully expected to be a raunchy, ridiculous-in-a-good-way, comedy.

Instead, I witnessed a clunky mishmash of crude humor overkill combined with poorly executed scene editing between live actors and puppets. General eye direction and eye levels from live actor to puppet were noticeably off, which became distracting. Lines delivered to puppets by live actors were just flat enough to indicate this cast was not well equipped to deliver dialogue to whatever placeholder object was being used as a puppet stand in.

Weaknesses in editing aside, there were moments that were beyond cringeworthy. Two scenes in particular with puppets, shall we say, "releasing" after some excitement were unnecessarily over the top. In a rather full theater, one person, identifiable by their lone, barking guffaw, laughed. The rest seemed stunned into silence by the sheer disbelief of what they were witnessing on the screen.