The Happytime Murders

     Last week Tom and I saw the movie "The Happytime Murders,"

... a sort of classic  film noir murder mystery in which the main character - a standard-issue hard-boiled, down-on-his-luck-in-the-mean-streets private detective named Phil Phillips - was a muppet, as were most of the movie's down-on-their-luck-in-the-mean-streets characters,

​...though the humans in the cast included Melissa McCarthy as a police detective named Connie Edwards who'd been Phil's partner before he was kicked off the force;

...Maya Rudolph as  Phil's
heart - of - gold secretary, Bubbles;

​​...Elizabeth Banks as Jennie, Phil's stripper ex-girlfriend;

...and Joel McHale as a clueless FBI agent.

     The plot centers around the suspicion of a serial murderer on the loose who may be targeting the puppet actors from an old TV show called "Happytime." 

     The story portrays the muppets as having the same psychological make-up as their human counterparts, including a predisposition for illicit sex,

...drugs; though for muppets the substance of choice is crystal sugar snorted through a cherry Twizzler,

…and shooting each other. Thankfully, the muppets are filled with fluff instead of human innards, because with all the muppocide it was a pretty fluffy movie.

     Now, I knew before I saw the movie that it had gotten pretty stank reviews.
      The Hollywood Review called "The Happytime Murders" "coarse, crude, and vulgar."   
      Vanity Fair called it "A total disaster with puppets...maybe the worst movie of the year...a waste of time and felt." 
       Rolling Stone went a step further and called it a contender for the worst movie of the decade and promised that anyone who bought a ticket was in for two hours of hell.

   Rotten Tomatoes didn't like it much, either.

     Actually the movie sounded pretty funny to me.
    But after having seen "The Happytime Murders" I'm not sure I'd describe it as funny; hilarious is more like it. Tom and I laughed from start to finish. In fact I kind of want to see it again.
      Still, it appears that most folks who've seen "The Happytime Murders" have found it irredeemably dreadful, and I think I can understand why.

    I’m conjecturing it's because of people's sentimental attachment to “Sesame Street,”

…whose characters  the  “Happytime” characters greatly resemble their creator being Brian Henson, son of the late Jim Henson, the creator of the muppets of "Sesame Street" and The Muppets franchise.

      As for me, I don’t really have any particular emotional bond with muppets, as my children didn’t grow up with “Sesame Street;” my children grew up without television; we did not purchase a television until my oldest daughter was in high school.
     Still, I can imagine that for those with fond childhood or parenthood memories of “Sesame Street” it must be unbearable watching their beloved muppets behaving like humans.

Reference:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/08/the-happytime-murders-review

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/happytime-murders-movie-review-melissa-mccarthy-713004/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/happytime-murders-review-1136680