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Rache (174 KP) rated The Happytime Murders (2017) in Movies

Jan 6, 2019  
The Happytime Murders (2017)
The Happytime Murders (2017)
2017 | Comedy
7
5.4 (18 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Funny (1 more)
Inappropriate
Noir Humour (0 more)
Nearly But Not Quite
Contains spoilers, click to show
Starting with the introduction of a puppet private detective, this is intended to be a gritty, noir, detective story with the added twist of Jim Henson puppets as characters. While film technology has vastly improved since such films as Cool World, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, puppet technology hasn't really changed, so the puppets all have overtones of The Muppets and Sesame Street.
Despite the humour inherent in puppet characters, and the use of puppets as an analogue for minority populations (up to and including a puppet who has been 'humanised'), it's neither funny enough nor enough of a social commentary to fit into one of those two dichotomous genres.
Noir comedy, carpet-bombed with dick jokes, riddled with puppet humour, and boiling with 'social commentary', this film doesn't really land in a single genre, and the ones it tries to are too different to make a really good film. It turns out a bit like 'Muppets She Wrote' with added swearing and crudery.
Melissa Mccarthy plays the typical irreverent, foul-mouthed, stereotypical racist cop, and interacts really well with the puppets, but even all of her talent can't save this film.
It's funny (the puppet sex scene is just insane), carries some preachiness about racism (trying to decide how much 'puppet' makes someone a puppet based on a surgical implant), thoroughly irreverent (foul mouthed, 'drug' addled puppets), has an okay storyline (the twist is fairly well written), and concludes with the usual happy Muppets ending, but it feels like it's trying too hard to do too much. Perhaps, if it had tried to do less, it could have been a really good film.
All of that taken into account, it's not bad for something to watch for lighthearted fun, if you don't want to think too hard about it.
  
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Megan Abbott recommended In a Lonely Place (1950) in Movies (curated)

 
In a Lonely Place (1950)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
1950 | Classics, Drama, Mystery
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, and Nicholas Ray: the film-noir hat trick. Based on Dorothy B. Hughes’s very different but equally brilliant novel, it’s doomy, romantic, pitch-black, and unforgettable. The Criterion extras here are particularly superb, with special attention to the movie’s turbulent backstory (Ray and Grahame were divorcing during production). This is the movie for which I’m most intensely evangelical. It feels as vital now as it did a half century ago."

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