There’s a funny idea at the heart of “The Happytime Murders,” a satire of hard-boiled L.A. noir in which most of the hard-luck, low-life characters happen to be puppets. But a movie is supposed to have many ideas, and the one-joke nature of this adults-only spoof wears out the film’s welcome, even if director Brian Henson and his talented crew never let us see the strings.
It’s a concept not unlike the recent Netflix dud “Bright,” which presented a Los Angeles inhabited by orcs (including the city’s first orc cop) and fairies as a way to make ham-fisted statements about race. Here we get private eye Phil Phillips (voiced by Muppet vet Bill Barretta), who had been the Lapd’s first puppet officer, only to get kicked off the force for not shooting a fellow puppet who was holding his partner Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) hostage.
It’s a concept not unlike the recent Netflix dud “Bright,” which presented a Los Angeles inhabited by orcs (including the city’s first orc cop) and fairies as a way to make ham-fisted statements about race. Here we get private eye Phil Phillips (voiced by Muppet vet Bill Barretta), who had been the Lapd’s first puppet officer, only to get kicked off the force for not shooting a fellow puppet who was holding his partner Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy) hostage.
- 8/22/2018
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
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