Review of The Happytime Murders (2018) by Circleville C — 24 Aug 2018

With the controversial lawsuit between Sesame Street and Director of "The Happytime Murders" Brian Henson (son of Jim Henson) over the use of puppets in a vulgar and offensive nature, this movie had a lot of press surrounding it. Let it be known that this movie is R-rated and is rated so for a good reason.

Melissa McCarthy is the leading human, Detective Connie Edwards, and Phil Philips is the leading puppet Detective/Private Investigator. Philips is an ex-cop (he is the first and last puppet cop) who lost his job due to a hostage situation gone bad; he is now a private investigator re-united with his former partner, Detective Edwards, as they work together to solve a series of murders which involve several of their close friends.

This movie is stuffed with foul language, sexual innuendos and visuals, crude humor, explicit drug references and use (replacing sugar with cocaine), and low-brow puppet jokes that will entertain the perverted 16-year-old in many adults.

Unfortunately, I am not one of those who is entertained by a basic storyline or the low-brow humor contained in this film. About 30 minutes in, I was looking at my watch waiting for the movie to end. The best feature of the entire film was the great puppetry, seeing these creations walking the streets and living their own lives among humans. I truly believe this could have been a great film had the creators worked on story over easy punch lines and the sexual humor, which appear to be the primary purpose of this movie.

"The Happytime Murders" earned 1 star out of 5 based on its great work on puppetry and poor work on everything else. There is a small market of people who will enjoy this movie, and this market will absolutely love it. I don't think we will see many more R-rated puppet movies in the near future, but if toned down and placed more in reality, this concept could be real fun.