The Happytime Murders

This is a mess. And it’s a mess in very strange ways – a puppet detective movie in a world where puppets are a discriminated underclass in a world mostly run for and by humans, where a series of murders going through the cast of an old TV show bring out a lot of dark and dirty secrets, this could have been a twistedly entertaining romp along the lines of Meet the Feebles or Avenue Q. But instead this is very clunky – the lead puppet, Phil, is a fairly dull compendium of PI clichés, and Melissa McCarthy as his human offsider isn’t really breaking the mould of her recent run of “yell very loud” performances either. Nobody really seems to get the tone of how this should work, which is ridiculous given this is the Henson organisation’s attempt at doing something a bit more wide ranging. None of the puppets really appeal, and the only human performance that even vaguely gets the tone right is Maya Rudolph as Phil’s secretary – she’s got a blissful goofyness that briefly lightens up the screen when she’s on, reminding us this is meant to be fun, not a slog. But her role’s too small to really give this much more than a tiny lift. Very missable.