The Happytime Murders (R)
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streaming sites: Amazon; Fandango; YouTube

This came out in 2018, but I didn't see it until 2025. Before I watched it, I wasn't quite sure where I'd put my review, but my guess was under "comedy". However, I ended up putting it under "film noir" (comedy subheading). It is a pretty raunchy comedy, and not all the humor is to my taste, but it's also played rather like a straight noir. Oh, and of course, a lot of the characters are puppets. The movie did poorly with both critics and box office, but I thought it was mostly a good movie. Not great, but good.

Phil Phillips (puppeteer Bill Barretta) is a private eye who used to be a cop. He was the first puppet allowed on the police force, but was disgraced when he missed a shot at a puppet who was holding his human partner, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy), at gunpoint. As we learn later in the movie via flashback, Phil's shot accidentally hit and killed a puppet bystander with a young daughter. So he feels a great degree of guilt over that. He wasn't just fired; a new rule was enacted that no puppets would ever again be allowed to become cops. And Edwards continues to blame him for missing his target and thereby risking her life. So they don't get along, these days, which means that inevitably, due to movie logic, they'll be forced to team up again to solve another crime. But that's getting ahead of myself.

Phil has a human secretary named Bubbles (Maya Rudolph), who is one of the few humans in the movie who aren't prejudiced against puppets. One day, a puppet named Sandra White comes into Phil's office to hire him on a case. While he's out investigating, several puppets get killed by an unknown assailant. This includes a rabbit named Augustust Bumblypants, who used to be one of the stars of a sitcom called "The Happytime Gang". Most of the actors on the show were puppets, but there was one human named Jenny Peterson (Elizabeth Banks), who used to date Phil. It seems like many members of the former cast are now down on their luck, but a syndication deal is about to get them millions of dollars. Soon, more of the cast members are killed, and police Lt. Banning assigns Phil to work with Edwards on the case. Things get more complicated when an FBI agent named Campbell (Joel McHale) also begins investigating the murders, and Phil becomes his prime suspect, since he's always nearby when the murders happen.

I don't want to spoil any more details of the plot, but there is a more or less happy ending. Overall, I thought it was a pretty decent mystery movie, and an okay comedy. Definitely gritty and dark, with some compelling characters and motivations. I somehow found all the puppets believable as living people, and was offended by all the racism they faced in their daily lives. It's just a shame more people didn't like the movie. It easily could have been totally cringe, and I was a bit worried before I watched it. But now that I've seen it, I just think it worked well enough, and in spite of the comedy aspects, it can be taken seriously. I get how not eveyone will feel that way about it, but if they don't, I don't think it's the movie's fault, just a matter of personal taste.