Review of The Happytime Murders (2018) by Thequietgamer — 13 Dec 2020

A one-joke comedy centered around the concept of watching puppets be vulgar and raunchy. The far less clever Ted did the same thing just with teddy bears, yet it was somehow given a pass. Meanwhile this movie has an actual plot.

The whole thing is also meant to be an allegory for racism, but fails at being effective social commentary. This is because it's never clearly defined how the racism in its world works. You'll see things like a depiction of a more subtle, quiet bigotry and a mutual sense of disdain or mistrust that's been formed by years of prior abuse that closely mirrors today's social climate, only to then witness segregated hospitals and characters making blatantly racist remarks that no one calls them out for like we're back in the late 1800s, early 1900s or something. Essentially, it struggles to pick between two different time periods it wants to critique, one of which is wildly outdated, and therefore fails to offer anything on the topic other than a generic "mmmm, racism bad 'kay?" message. I hate to say it, but I think even Bright did much better job on this front.

For all of its faults though which relate to things like the simplistic story and some aspects that just flat out don't work, I was surprised by just how much this made me laugh. It's all a bunch of nasty sex and potty shock humor, but there's something about that which actually kind of works under the whole "Muppets for adults" conceit because of how effectively it catches you off guard with how far it's willing to go at times. Plus, there are some genuinely amusing flourishes that come from just how well realized these puppets are not just as characters, but anatomically as well. So as stupid and gross as it may be I still walked away entertained and wouldn't mind seeing another project along the same lines.