12 Movies That Tried Too Hard To Innovate (And Sucked Anyway)
4. The Happytime Murders
The pitch: The Muppets in an R-rated comedy. Sign. Us. Up!
The Happytime Murders had a fantastic concept, but with premises like this it's so important not to just lean on the one gag of things associated with children's entertainment being surrounded by adult jokes. Unfortunately, that's what this movie did, with disastrous results.
The Happytime Murders was so focused on showing off its edgy, unique concept and dropping shocking jokes that it forgot to come up with a remotely interesting plot or compelling characters. To make matters worse, this movie wasn't even funny on any level.
A good point of comparison is films like Team America: World Police and Sausage Party, which are similar adult animations in terms of their concepts. They are essentially one-joke films and aren't very funny, but they are still watchable and enjoyable because they both have good stories. Had The Happytime Murders actually had a plot, it wouldn't have ended up being one of the worst comedies of the last few years.
You need more than one joke to sustain a feature-length comedy and this ghastly train-wreck is perfect evidence of that.