Starring Melissa McCarthy, Joel McHale, Maya Rudolph, Elizabeth Banks

Directed by Brian Henson

STX Entertainment, out now

When a mysterious assailant starts assassinating the cast members of popular TV show The Happytime Murders, puppet private investigator Phil Philips begrudgingly teams up with his human ex-partner to solve the mystery.

The Happytime Murders has the distinction of being the first puppet noir, a murder mystery in the city of muppets… angels… complete with a femme fatale and double-crossing dames. The fact that the puppets are potty-mouthed is something of a one-joke conceit, so thankfully director Brian Henson (son of Muppet supremo Jim) has fashioned a movie that does more than laugh at the fabric characters dropping f-bombs.

Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles and stage hit Avenue Q have trodden this line before, and Team America: World Police is still the final word in puppet sex, but those movies really push the X-rated aspect of their filthy characters. Sure, there’s some very smutty material here too, a scene in a sex shop being a highlight, but it feels more smutty than outrageous and it’s certainly not mean spirited . It’s made by production arm Henson Alternative, and I feel it stays on the right sight side of fun without self-destructing the Henson legacy.

Melissa McCarthy is the human half of this mismatched buddy couple, puppets now following in the footsteps of orcs (Bright), visitors (Alien Nation) and corpses (RIPD), and she had a personality that you’ll either embrace or bristle against. The use of familiar LA locations (Downtown, Skid Row, Muscle Beach) adds to the verisimilitude, and there’s even a little social commentary in the way that one of the puppets bleaches his skin and has a nose job to look more human and thus be more accepted.

Verdict: Sophisticated this ain’t, but you’ll struggle to avoid chuckling at the pastiches of everything from Raymond Chandler to Basic Instinct, with the odd cheeky reference to Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. One character gets torn to shreds by a pack of (admittedly small) dogs, and the aftermath of one massacre looks like Build-a-Bear Workshop at the end of a kid’s party! Not hilarious, but a fun 90-minute diversion that really is not for the kids. 7/10

Nick Joy