Critics think it’s a mess

Image: Justin lubin / stx entertainment

Puppets, murder, Sesame Street lawsuits—that’s what summer blockbusters are made of… right? Well, according to critics, not so much.

Reviews for The Happytime Murders aren’t looking so happy. Despite its star-studded cast — led by Melissa McCarthy — the puppet-heavy film noir/comedy isn’t doing so well in the court of public opinion. 

Directed by Brian Henson (son of the late Muppets creator Jim Henson), The Happytime Murders parodies traditional puppet storytelling in a human- and puppet-inhabited Los Angeles. From drug abuse to graphic sex scenes, the Happytime trailer makes it clear that this isn’t your average visit with Kermit the Frog. And yet, while the naughty puppet trope has certainly worked in the past, it doesn’t seem to be singing (or miming) quite like it used to. 

Check out some critics’ takes on The Happytime Murders below.

It tries way too hard

E. Oliver Whitney, ScreenCrush:

The Happytime Murders tries so desperately hard to push the envelope of indecency that it crosses into the realm of being astonishingly unfunny. I honestly can’t name another time I’ve sat in a theater and witnessed such deafening silence fall across an audience during a comedy than in my press screening for this. It isn’t the mere notion of watching puppets act naughty that is offensive or shocking; what’s shocking is how Henson’s film, written by Todd Berger with a story by Dee Austin Robertson, thinks it’s hilarious and edgy as it continues to make a fool of itself throughout the (thankfully brief) 91-minute runtime. The Happytime Murders is like that guy who gets too wasted too early at the party, taking things to an 11 when everyone else is comfortably tipsy at a seven. It’s as if a group of puppeteers who’ve been forced to stymie their horn-dog sense of humor for years are finally free to shout every crude joke at the top of their lungs all at once.

Andrew Barker, Variety:

It should come as no surprise that “Happytime” comes up farcically short as a metaphor for racism. But its most fatal miscalculation is the decision to frontload so many of its crassest setpieces into the first 15 or 20 minutes, depriving the rest of the film of the shock value that is its entire raison d’etre. By the midway point, the movie is so strapped for ideas that it resorts to turning dud one-off jokes (characters mistaking McCarthy for a man, “an asshole says what?”) into painfully extended running gags.

Its attempts at social commentary fail miserably

Molly Freeman, ScreenRant:

The Happytime Murders also clumsily tries to use its puppet-filled world as a metaphor for classism, racism and sexism in modern America, as puppets are persecuted and made to be the butt of offensive jokes. However, those themes aren’t really developed and are largely forgotten once the murder mystery storyline kicks into gear. Instead, positioning the puppets as a race that has been historically persecuted is more offensive and ridiculous than the smart social commentary The Happytime Murders clearly wants its audience to believe it is.

Maya Rudolph shines amidst felt

Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter: 

As always, McCarthy is a delight, elevating the uneven material with consistent comic brilliance marked by broad physicality; the scene in which her character snorts “grade A sucrose,” enough to kill an ordinary human, is a hoot. She also displays striking chemistry with her puppet co-star, expertly voiced and manipulated by Barretta. The more than 125 puppet characters, all created especially for the film, feature many striking creations, albeit not ones likely to show up on toy-store shelves. But the movie is practically stolen by a human performer, Rudolph, who infuses Bubbles with as much sweetness as hilarity.

David Ehrlich, IndieWire: 

It’s an incredible testament to the great Maya Rudolph that she almost rises above it, playing Phil’s lovelorn secretary with enough doe-eyed sass to save a few of her scenes. After all those years at “SNL,” she’s an absolute master at rescuing laughs from overlong sketches that run themselves into the ground — she does more with a lock-pick and a banana in this movie than Henson accomplishes with 50 hypersexual puppets and all the hand-sewn vulvas an R-rating can buy.

We’re lucky it’s only 90 minutes

Brian Lowry, CNN:

“Happytime Murders” can’t tickle the funny bone enough to get more than a few laughs even from Elmo. It’s hard to overemphasize the extent to which the puerile humor yields diminishing returns, as the filmmakers (Henson and writer Todd Berger) hammer away at dirty-puppet jokes to the point of wearing holes in them.

A.O. Scott, The New York Times: 

Ms. McCarthy has proved her comic mettle in all kinds of company, so why not alongside a chain-smoking blue guy in a rumpled suit? She and the other non-inanimate actors — Mainly Ms. Banks, Maya Rudolph and Leslie David Baker — get to do a bit of silly riffing, but it’s mostly tired, bloodless stuff. The plot should be an excuse for comic invention, but it mostly just gets in the way, which makes me think that a feature film isn’t really what Phil and his ilk need or deserve. Like their mainstream Muppet brethren, they might be more at home on smaller screeners, in shorter bits. No disrespect.