My eyes are bleeding…
It’s funny, I was actually psyched to see this one. Not necessarily because I thought it was going to be a quote on quote “good” movie, or I thought it would be an enthralling muppets entry, but because I thought the film’s premise would offer a really, f****** amazing time at the theaters, especially with a crowd full of friends, who would be in unison, laughing and howling at the stupidity and absurdity of the movie. That…didn’t happen. It more so played out in the fashion of us yawning, fatigued, squirming, mentally troubled, whispering over and over again “what in the f***”, and maybe, possibly, cheering or applauding at the end—deservedly done because the film had finally ended. The Happytime Murders, put simply, is a damn disgrace to cinema.
Quick Intermission: You know maybe it’s my fault this movie seemed so unbearable. I was the one who had SOME expectations for this movie and furthermore pictured it to be a guilty, amusing time. Maybe it’s the expectations of having expectations that is, all to blame for.
Putting that aside though, I’m still going to rip this movie a new a******.
Interesting enough, this movie despite its hard R-Rating, feels like a middle-schooler wrote it. It plays out like a bland, average, cliché movie filled with a bunch of inhumourous dick, sex, potty, and drug jokes—that I guiltily enough, found amusing during my pre-teen years. But trust me, that s*** only works in Deadpool, but this is no Deadpool, this is a Slaughterhouse, Jim Henson’s Worst Nightmare, Puppeteer Porno, and it made me want to—more literally than metaphysically—hurl.
However, by far, this movie’s biggest mistake, is its attempts to be both weighty (serious) and comedic at the same time, and it just doesn’t flow, especially all that weighty BS. All it’s messages, morals, and themes are all so so corny—it’s the most corny corny can corningly get (It’s more corny than an Adam Sandler, family-friendly comedy). The screenplay is to be blamed for this; one of the worst screenplays of the year for sure. In fact, this whole movie is actually the worst movie this year has had to offer so far. I mean (gosh I’m just ranting at this point and I’m losing myself in these waves of words but…ahem…let’s just continue and get focused) I at least expected to laugh hard maybe at least a couple of times, but this movie tries way to hard to be witty and on-the-nose peachy, but it just results feeling shoddily cringy and painful. Some scenes which are supposed to be “raunchy funny”—cause HEY MUPPETS ARE HAVING SEX AND S*** IN A F****** PORNSHOP HOLY HOT DAMN—are actually engraved into my head, in the most negative manner—it’s essentially a curse. It sincerely made me question humanity and what we, as humans and filmmakers, have become.
And don’t give me that: “Oh, you just don’t get it cause you don’t understand or appreciate dark humor.” Dudes and Dudettes, I am a literal sucker for dark humor, it’s my all-time favorite genre of comedy. But let me tell you, there is a difference between clever dark humor, and dark humor that is just dark for the sake of being dark because it thinks a hint of edginess is going to get me to go down on my knees and laugh my ass off.
Jeez, I need to watch The Godfather or even Happy F****** Gilmore (sorry for the bonus Adam Sandler joke) or something thirty times more before I become a pure moviegoer again, cause this crap makes me feel like I got some anti-cinematic virus lurking and squirming inside of me like a tapeworm. UGH.
In spite of all the technicalities of the film—to quickly summarize—the editing, structuring, acting, dialogue, and (a little off topic but it’s got to be said) the green-screen effects, are all mediocre to atrocious.
I know this may seem immature, but I’m about to make a dick joke cause this movie did a lot of em’, so I feel obligated to do one as well, and it fits the theme of this so-called “film”, and I just don’t care anymore, but Brian Henson and Todd Berger basically just jerked-off every audience that saw this movie for an hour and thirty-one minutes while taking our hard earned money in the process.
The only reason I’m not giving this movie an “F” is because I enjoyed Bill Barretta’s voice-work, and the puppeteering was off the chains, and I can honestly see and respect the hard work and commitment that the puppeteers put into this movie. Besides that, if you fall under ALL of these categories: You hate your guts, you’re broke as hell, you’re divorced for being an abusive alcoholic, your kids hate you cause you were never there for them, you’ve got no family, you eat nothing but Pop-tarts and Cheerios every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you’re currently imprisoned for manslaughter, and you’ve got nothing else left to lose, then The Happytime Murders just might be the movie for you! Everybody else though is excluded from seeing this. (Verdict: D-)
This is definitely my most offensive movie review yet. I’m so proud of myself. 😪
Four Words: Stanley From The Office
Burning the Celluloid 
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