I used to believe that you could take anything, add a muppet to it, and it instantly became better.  I have never been more heartbroken to be wrong.  Standing alone, muppets aside, Happy Time Murders is just a bad cop movie.  Adding muppets was supposed to bring a new level of comedy to an old movie genre.  Instead it takes a bad movie and makes it increasingly awkward.  Happy Time Murders takes you into a reality where muppets and humans live along side each other and gives you a glimpse as to what that world is like.  Despite a few scenes and jokes that play on that reality, it is mostly a bad cop movie where half of the cast of poor actors is replaced with muppets.  The outcome is still just a bad cop movie, and at times worse due to the fact that you are watching a bad movie with muppets.  Which until now I didn’t think could exist.  The realism they portray in this reality goes against everything we’ve been taught about muppets.  I often found myself watching scenes waiting for a punchline only to be led into the next scene.  This often leaves the audience with an uncomfortable feeling.  Like biting into a Skittles without tasting the rainbow.  Many scenes felt like chewing flavorless gum and leave you wondering “why am I doing this?”.  The cast is full of comedic veterans with proven records, and I refuse to blame it on the muppets, so I defer to the writing.

Melissa McCarthy (Detective Connie Edwards) has the lead role in this movie and it was not impressive.  At some point she realized she was in a bad muppet movie and it shows in her delivery.  Her character has no depth and her portrayal felt very phoned in.  Elizabeth Banks (Jenny) has one of the larger support roles and she merely did her job.  The whole movie felt like everybody’s “off” day.  Could be the writing, or the inexperience working with inanimate objects, but you expect more from these actors given that you have seen them in many lovable roles.  Maya Rudolph (Bubbles) had the most enjoyable character in Happy Time and she brought her usual standard of comedy.  The puppeteering is not to fault here.  It was as good as we have ever seen and Henson Alternative did a great job with the animation of the puppets.  With so many veteran comedians and quality puppeteering, writing and directing are the only things to place blame on.

If not for the sake of writing a honest review I would have walked out of the theatre before the ending.  I found myself by the end being tired of waiting for a punchline that was never going to come.  The major fault I see in this movie is thinking muppets could hold a scene on their own with out being the comedic relief.  During long dialogue scenes I found myself questioning how I could of thought muppets could do no wrong.  On paper this movie seemed like a genius idea, however execution did not prove the theory.  That’s not to say we should throw out a future adult muppet movie, but as far as Happy Time is concerned, they truly missed the mark.  I felt a piece of the foul mouthed child in me die last night.  Tonight I will pour a lil chocolate milk out on the curb for him.