The Happytime Murders
STX Entertainment | Release Date: August 24, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
27
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
13
Negative:
30
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
79
IGNWilliam BibbianiAug 22, 2018
The Happytime Murders may not be a timeless classic on par with Roger Rabbit, but it’s more interesting and nuanced than its raunchy, violent humor suggests. The puppeteering is fantastic, the characters are interesting, and although the story isn’t ingenious the jokes are usually funny. Read full review
75
UproxxVince ManciniAug 22, 2018
Happytime Murders isn’t the funniest or the smartest movie I’ve ever seen, but I forgive it because it isn’t trying that hard. At least, joke-wise. There’s something beautiful about the level of craft that goes into just one puppet, that in many cases ends up appearing in a single, one-off joke about pubic lice. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckAug 22, 2018
It's more than funny enough, packing lots of genuine, if frequently tasteless, laughs into its relatively brief running time Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTom RussoAug 23, 2018
Some of this smutty irreverence is undeniably hilarious, goosed along by Melissa McCarthy’s game presence as Phil’s estranged LAPD partner and human foil. (In other felt-free casting, Maya Rudolph is equally entertaining as Phil’s trusty secretary, even if Elizabeth Banks and Joel McHale go to waste.) Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 23, 2018
Despite being one of the shortest theatrical releases of the year, clocking in at about 75 minutes (not counting end credits), The Happytime Murders feels overlong. That’s probably because the plot is nonsensical and pointless. Read full review
60
CineVueZoe MargolisAug 30, 2018
Where The Happytime Murders excels is in its humour, because it’s very, very funny. But more than that, it’s filthy. Utterly, gloriously, unapologetically, deeply, darkly, sexually filthy. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicSamantha IncorvaiaAug 23, 2018
It's entertaining enough to see once, just to say you've seen it. But it surely isn't for everyone. You've got to have a dark and dirty sense of humor. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyAug 22, 2018
There are a few spiky moments of sick, WTF fun (a bout of rough sex that ends with a Silly String climax; the first time a puppet drops an F-bomb), but mostly it feels like a promising idea poorly executed. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyAug 22, 2018
The Happytime Murders isn’t so much interested in immersing you in a comedic world so much as it is in having its puppets do the most outrageous things you’ve never seen or heard puppets do in a movie. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottAug 22, 2018
What holds this patchwork of naughtiness together is some pretty threadbare cloth. Read full review
50
Original-CinJim SlotekAug 22, 2018
There’s enough promise in The Happytime Murders for it to possibly work as a short-lived, gimmicky Comedy Network series. But the effort that’s put into stretching this gag over the length of a feature film is more painful than funny. Read full review
45
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeAug 22, 2018
The one-joke nature of this adults-only spoof wears out the film’s welcome, even if director Brian Henson and his talented crew never let us see the strings. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubErik AdamsAug 23, 2018
It’d be an intriguing premise — if, again, it weren’t so nearly identical to "Roger Rabbit," right down to the inevitable frame job. Also, if The Happytime Murders had taken a few more cues from that film and focused less on the rote whodunit and more on the funhouse-mirror L.A. where it takes place. Read full review
41
The VergeBryan BishopOct 8, 2018
It’s frustrating that a movie that seems so improbable actually got made, only to fall so incredibly short. Read full review
40
We Got This CoveredLuke ParkerAug 28, 2018
Frankly, it’s heartbreaking to see the Henson name tossed about a project that’s so heartless and so gruesome that the only thing I imagine sticking from it is Phil’s “Silly String.” Read full review
40
EmpireDan JolinAug 27, 2018
Who Framed Roger Rabbit meets Meets The Feebles, in a disappointing adult comedy that never lives up to the promise of its premise. Read full review
40
Film ThreatMatthew PassantinoAug 24, 2018
The Happytime Murders eventually ends up spinning its wheels, telling the same joke over-and-over. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonAug 22, 2018
While the actors and puppeteers are committed to The Happytime Murders’ surreal reality, they almost do too good a job: This world’s authenticity is so complete that you’re left mostly slogging through how inanimate most everything else about the movie is. Read full review
38
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenAug 30, 2018
The Happytime Murders is at its best not when it’s at its most “adult,” but when the filmmakers find new, surprising ways to employ their puppeteering creativity in the real world. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 28, 2018
It’s the execution that lets this dog down. Not enough funny lines and even the cheap, dirty laughs are in short supply. Read full review
38
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenAug 23, 2018
A joyless experience. Read full review
38
USA TodayBrian TruittAug 23, 2018
Stuffed full of rampant badness, the scattershot comedy isn’t nearly as clever or subversive as it thinks it is. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzAug 23, 2018
True appreciation must be paid to Melissa McCarthy, who does a so-very-loud version of her usual shtick – foul-mouthed wrecking-ball – to keep audiences awake when director Brian Henson (yes, son of Muppet creator Jim) resorts to having his puppets drop F-bombs instead of delivering actual jokes. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 24, 2018
The Happytime Murders turns out to be a stupefyingly sh—y puppet movie. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleAug 23, 2018
This is the feature-length equivalent of an R-rated gag reel from a mainstream Muppets feature. While it might be fun  – and maybe even cathartic  –  for the puppeteers to cut loose with some sophomoric humor, the film never finds that next gear to locate these jokes in contrast to something, anything. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonAug 23, 2018
It has its moments, several of which are provided by Ms. Rudolph, putting a spin on the girl-friday role. She has one scene of utter hilarity that shouldn’t be spoiled, and can’t be printed anyway, but may lead to “pilafing” becoming the word of the year on Urban Dictionary. Read full review
30
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlAug 22, 2018
Some viewers, perhaps, might be shocked at the association of Mr. Rainbow Connection with scenes set in porno shops, strip clubs, and drug dens. What jolted me, though, was seeing the Henson name all over a project that’s so often bland and listless, so tame in its designs, so limited in its imagination, so joyless in its execution. Read full review
28
Paste MagazineWill LeitchAug 28, 2018
What’s immediately surprising and dispiriting about The Happytime Murders is how haphazard the actual puppets are. They aren’t inventively or cleverly put together, and they’re sort of repulsive in a way that’s less “edgy” and more “consistently unpleasant to look at.” Read full review
25
ObserverOliver JonesAug 24, 2018
Phil is the only puppet character that registers at all, which is one of the countless ways that the movies falls short of the legacy it is meant to expand and subvert. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubAug 23, 2018
Unfortunately, it’s not much of a movie. The best thing “Happytime” has going for it is shock value, and that wears away after about 10 minutes. It doesn’t have an interesting story, and the jokes fall flat. Read full review
25
Philadelphia Daily NewsNick VadalaAug 23, 2018
The Happytime Murders is a good idea executed badly, or at least one that is trying too hard to be shocking. Read full review
25
St. Louis Post-DispatchKatie WalshAug 23, 2018
Despite the best efforts of McCarthy, and a winsome Maya Rudolph as Phil’s 1940s-style secretary, Bubbles, The Happytime Murders is more like the “Boringtime Slog.” Read full review
25
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonAug 23, 2018
It becomes clear all too quickly that “puppets say swears” is all the film has to offer, so it’s a slog to sit through the remaining seventy minutes of that same joke, repeated ad nauseam. Read full review
25
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 22, 2018
The son of Muppets creator Jim Henson has delivered a cliché-ridden, laughless bore that wastes lead actress Melissa McCarthy’s prodigious comic talents and beats well-trod territory with a mallet. Read full review
25
The Associated PressJake CoyleAug 22, 2018
It’s almost reassuring that in today’s often sanitized, assembly-line mainstream moviemaking that a film can be as crude, as off-brand and as bad as The Happytime Murders. Almost. Read full review
20
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 22, 2018
Stuffed with lifeless gags, this cringeworthy puppet provocation is too pleased with its own naughtiness. Read full review
20
VarietyAndrew BarkerAug 22, 2018
It should come as no surprise that “Happytime” comes up farcically short as a metaphor for racism. But its most fatal miscalculation is the decision to frontload so many of its crassest setpieces into the first 15 or 20 minutes, depriving the rest of the film of the shock value that is its entire raison d’etre. Read full review
20
The GuardianCharles BramescoAug 22, 2018
As with all overwhelmingly poor movies, it’s the delicate confluence of many varied factors that creates the critic’s familiar feeling of despairing hopelessness in the cinema. Read full review
16
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 22, 2018
If The Happytime Murders isn’t the worst movie of the summer, I tremble at the thought of whatever’s coming out next week. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineDerek SmithAug 22, 2018
The film aims only to shock, refusing to deliver anything in an intriguingly post-ironic way in the process. Read full review
10
SlateInkoo KangAug 30, 2018
A joyless, soulless slog, wasting the efforts of co-stars Melissa McCarthy and Elizabeth Banks. Read full review
10
Film Journal InternationalRebecca PahleAug 23, 2018
If you expect the humor to be any smarter or more original than “Hey, look, this puppet has pubes!,” you’re going to walk out disappointed. Read full review
10
VoxAlissa WilkinsonAug 23, 2018
Like all ghastly failures, The Happytime Murders is not “so bad it’s good.” It’s just bad: a boring flop, an unfunny comedy where nothing’s at stake. Read full review
10
ScreenCrushE. Oliver WhitneyAug 22, 2018
Henson has given us the worst movie of the summer — and quite possibly the worst of the year thus far. Read full review
10
Vanity FairRichard LawsonAug 22, 2018
Not a single bit lands in The Happytime Murders. Read full review
0
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 25, 2018
Maybe its gargantuan god-awfulness is not a exactly a sin against cinema. But throw away your money on a ticket and you’re in for two hours of certain hell. Read full review
0
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 23, 2018
Hope began to die about five minutes into this off-putting, cheap-looking, virtually laugh-free disaster. Hope was dead at the 10-minute mark. Read full review
0
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 23, 2018
The Happytime Murders is a one-joke movie, minus one joke. The year may cough up a worse film, but probably not a more joyless, witless one, raunchy or otherwise. Read full review
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