Detective Phil Philips is a down-on-his-luck puppet who used to work for the Los Angeles Police Department. When two puppets from an old TV show wind up dead, Phil suspects something is afoot and rejoins the LAPD as a consultant. Reunited with Connie Edwards, his former human partner, the bickering duo soon find themselves in a race against time to protect other former cast members before the killer strikes again.
The Happytime murders is definitely a surprising film to say the least! It is a real combination of the sesame street characters that the nation has grown to love, combined with reality TV and CSI all in one film; which is definitely something that we haven't seen from the puppets before! The film definitely offers more into the franchise and maybe catches a few people off guard with its variety of 'interesting' scenes and choices of character dialogue, but is it a step in the right direction or are the films creators left looking like a bunch of muppets? Here are my thoughts.
When I said that the happytime murders offers a bit more to the franchise I definitely wasn't joking, my favourite part of the film was definitely the twist on the typical muppet characters, though jokes, innuendos and hilarious references that really gave the show an edge on other films in the genre. The humour really helped the film to stand out - primarily because of how the film began. There were a variety of really great establishing camera angles that helped to immerse the audience in the scenes, they really helped to kick off the film well and they had a great effect of easing the audience into the films plot, as well as looking really great and interesting! These camera shots were complimented by the narration too, which had a similar effect of helping to set the scene of the film to the audience well, and it had a positive effect that helped to make it easy to understand. It generally made the beginning of the film easy to understand. I also liked how towards the beginning of the film, the obvious heroic, bad boy character was established really nicely. In a typical American crime detective fashion, which actually had a good effect of adding authenticity into the film, because the fights and arguments between puppets and humans on the street really helped to add value to the world and the scene. They also introduced us to the main character well, and he had obvious characteristics that changed throughout the film and really enhanced his character which I found to be interesting. Philip wasn't the only interesting and complex character in the film though, this film really had a variety of funny and engaging characters that seemed to pop up throughout the film in various places. These characters were not only funny in the jokes and slapstick humour that they used, but they were also simple and easy to understand, which as the film had a lot of characters, made them easy to grasp the concept of who they were and their purpose. For example, Philip started the film off as a typical detective, over-ridden with work, drinking problems, feeling lonely, but towards the end of the film he seems to really challenge his stereotype and original character by really 'coming out of his shell' and actually seeming to be happier and much more successful in both his love and career life. This was the same between Connie and Philip too, at the beginning they shared a typically sour relationship, but we as an audience were taken through their history through a series of flashbacks and developments which in the end saw them closer than ever.
These flashbacks were really nicely used, they helped to add context to the film and they really seemed to answer many of the big questions in the film in strange places, not at the beginning of the film or end and this I really liked and enjoyed. We found out who the villain was, but it was interesting to see how they managed to catch her and to eventually unravel her plot. This was a nice take on the plot, as it helped to get us as an audience, actively involved within the investigation as we were following it from all angles through constant character switches. These switches were great, because they really helped to immerse us in the investigation, by keeping us constantly updated with how the characters were doing and what they were up to as well, they were fairly subtle in the sense that they weren't too often, but at key points. Which, essentially kept the film interesting and enjoyable, asides from the variety of humour in the film too of course! The plot was also quickly established in this sense too, and it was really simple and straightforward, which was good because it made the film nice and easy to understand and follow through, it seemed to move very quickly, which at times made it fairly difficult to keep up with, but on the whole the plot for the film was done nicely. It was also a really cool plot, by using a twist on a well known group of characters, which definitely added in an element of shock and surprise to the film, especially throughout the various sex scenes in the film - definitely didn't expect those haha! I think that the humour really describes the film, it was really playful and a feel good kinda film that you can go to watch and just generally laugh about. It's not an award winning film for sure, but it will make you laugh and that's the point of a comedy crime film isn't it? But the film isn't just a humorous film either, it adds in an element of suspense (somehow!) by following the group being hunted down and killed one by one. It forebodes well throughout the film but it just adds a sense of suspense and causes the audience to wonder if Phillip will be the next character to die or what will happen which I liked, it really got the audience involved. But some of the ways in which the characters were killed were very strange, such as being ripped up by a dog or washed up in the sea and wrung like a wet towel!! But the changing personalities and lonely police officers adapting and evolving from these grumpy and miserable characters, into a positive ending to mask the anger and negativity from them. This change of character personalities was really engaging and helped to make the film interesting, as well as getting us emotionally involved with the characters by labeling them using audio - for example a slow, mysterious audio for Philip and Connie, but for the villains a much more sinister audio - it just really helped to relay the mood to the audience.
No film is perfect though, and when I say that this film is far from it. Trust me, I mean it! This film is definitely troubled, many of the lines of dialogue from the other, smaller characters was really laughable and was so awful I could actually tell that they were reading directly off a script, these lines of dialogue had no sign of emotion or passion at all. This was mainly from Lieutenant Banning, I like Stanley Hudson, but here you really weren't very good, as well as other characters. Apart from the main two characters, none of the others were engaging, exciting or even interesting at all and they just seemed to be fairly boring when they came onto the screen, they didn't manage to get the audience excited at all because of their lack of interesting dialogue. The film was also playful yes, but it wasn't executed in the best way and many of the parts of the film weren't believable at all (and I don't mean about the muppets!), but for scenes like Connie taking Philip out of prison, it was just far too easy and this really wasn't authentic or believable at all, I even managed to see the same video clip used twice in 10 seconds of each other, not a good start! It really seemed to rely on the audience not challenging what was going on at all, and just believing everything - which for me was not a great part of the film at all. In this aspect, the film seemed lazy and unoriginal in the way that it just glided over issues and problems in the plot and with the characters.
This is similar to what I disliked about the scenes, they too, weren't incredibly engaging or exciting and I think that the film mainly relied upon having a muppet/human world as the main attraction of the film, which was introduced nicely but it definitely lost it's impact a few minutes after. The quick camera angles were mediocre at best, and didn't help to make some key scenes really engaging or to help get us involved throughout, only for a few scenes. The main problem for me though, was that the film seemed to try too hard to be funny, relatable and rude. The film was full of too may rude and strange scenes (mostly sexual) that just seemed to drag on and felt way too exaggerated, after a while these jokes were so predictable and unfunny, although the odd joke did get some laughs from the audience, on the whole the humour was definitely far too pushed. After a while many of these scenes were greeted with a cringe, rather than laughter. Especially with some very weird scenes such as a cow getting milked by a octopus for a good 20 seconds on a camera, these scenes were so weird honestly!!
Overall, I would rate this film a 7. It offered a lot to the franchise, by offering a funny and original twist onto the muppets to transform them into real and relatable characters. The characters developed really well and the use of flashbacks and carious audio changes were all really useful elements that fed into the humour of the film, but for me, there were far too many issues. Problems with execution of the plot, issues with poor dialogue that just left characters boring and unengaging, overall, there is an amazing film that is begging to be released here, with such an original and infectious twist on the characters. But only half of it exists. It's time to face the music, time to turn off the lights, because the Happytime Murders never gets things started, and where it tried to, it tried far too hard and just ended up looking like quite a muppet.
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. I hope you have a great day, please check out my other reviews and feel free to get in contact! :)
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