BEFORE: So this film has been part of the plan for many months now, even when I didn't have a solid plan about how to watch it, I had it on my list. Because the main requirement now for my list is that I have to be curious about a film, and man, this one just about maxed out the curiosity meter.
It's been on iTunes for a few months, but at a price that really discouraged renting it. It seems they'd rather penalize the biggest fans first, the ones who will pay any price to see a movie sooner, which seems weird, because if somebody really, really, really wanted to see this, why didn't they do so when it was playing in movie theaters?
Then I waited, thinking that in time, the iTunes cost would come down, only it didn't - but I kept my options open, I figured that if it didn't become available to rent on iTunes, I'd just watch "The Equalizer 2" instead (which would have fit into my chain back between "Triple Frontier" and "If Beale Street Could Talk") but THEN, this movie started appearing in the premium cable listings, so problem solved! It was back into the line-up (let that be a lesson to you, iTunes, lower your prices once in a while) and "The Equalizer 2" got re-scheduled for next year. I mean, let's face it, movies about regular old vigilantes are a dime a dozen these days, but a puppet cop? That really gets my attention. So let's proceed.
Melissa McCarthy carries over from "Life of the Party", and so do three or four other actors.
THE PLOT: When the puppet cast of a 90's children's TV show begin to get murdered one by one, a disgraced LAPD detective-turned-private eye puppet takes on the case.
AFTER: This is another film that depicts an alternate reality of sorts, kind of like "Sorry to Bother You". This is a world where puppets are REAL, at least in and around Los Angeles, and they can walk and talk on their own, sort of like the toys in "Toy Story 4", only there's nobody controlling them, which means they can think, too. On top of all that, they have sex and they have sexual desires, and some of them get pretty freaky. Like, what constitutes porn to a puppet? This has been a trend in the last few years, going back to "Avenue Q" (which I think got sued at one point by Henson's company or maybe CTW, because the puppets looked so Sesame-Street like), and then continuing with films like "Team America: World Police" and "Sausage Party". The idea is that if you take something associated with children's entertainment, like puppets or cute cartoon figures, and then get really R-rated and nasty with it, some people are going to be entertained by that study in contrasts.
It seems like the Jim Henson Company is finally ready to embrace the possibility of telling more adult stories - though you really have to dig through a bunch of other production companies to confirm that they were involved here. Guess what? It's Jim Henson's birthday today, so I landed this one coincidentally on an interesting day - one has to wonder now if he was spinning in his grave after some muppet-like creatures from his old company started saying the F-word and having sex on camera, and doing a parody of "Basic Instinct" (and yes, they went there.) This leads to a bunch of questions, if you ask me - like, in this world, can puppets reproduce? If so, how, especially if their ejaculate has the consistency of silly string? Were the first puppets made by mankind, and if so, are they an offshoot of homo sapiens, or just a by-product of it, like robots? They strongly imply that humans and puppets can have sex with each other, but there are no half-human, half-puppet hybrids, so they can't reproduce together, right? God, this gets so confusing so quickly.
There is one character who got an organ transplant from a puppet, but that's one of the jokes - how, exactly, does that work if puppets don't have blood, but stuffing inside of them? And they're made out of felt, not skin and bones. The lead puppet character, Phil Philips, takes a big beating from humans at one point, but since he doesn't have any bones, their punches just get absorbed by his stuffing. Well, if he doesn't have any bones, then how does he walk around? How does he do anything, for that matter, without being controlled by puppeteers? Once your brain goes looking for answers here, you may realize that there are none - you might as well ask how the toys in "Toy Story" move around by themselves and talk and think. It's best not to think about this at all if you want to enjoy the story. Chalk another one up on my "Wall of Weird" for the movies of 2019, right?
What you need to know is that Phil Philips was once a cop, but after an incident he lost his badge, and all puppets in the future were banned from being cops. There's clearly a bunch of puppet racism going on in Los Angeles, where puppets are treated like second-class citizens, they apparently were once very big in the entertainment industry, appearing on shows like "The Happytime Gang", but many of them since then have been driven down into the shadowy underbelly of society. There are puppet hospitals, puppet sex clubs, one assumes puppet restaurants and stores, but they don't really get too far into all that here. Largely it's enough to know that they were once prominent entertainers, but they had their time in the spotlight, that's largely over, and most of them are just trying to scrape by.
Everything changes when somebody starts killing off the puppet stars from "The Happytime Gang", one of which happens to be Phil's brother. And then the rabbit, Mr. Bumblypants - and each time, Phil's got some connection to the victim, or he was near the scene when it happened. He also (quite coincidentally, contrivedly) had a relationship with Jenny, the only human on the show. Clearly this is some kind of frame-up job, but who's behind it, and why? Phil gets re-enlisted as a consultant to the police force, and gets teamed up with his old (also human) partner, despite the bad history between them, which we eventually learn about through flashback. OK, maybe it's NOT so hard to figure out who's framing Phil, but hey, every story is a journey and some of us reach the destination faster than others, I guess.
I'm guessing this was considered a box-office bomb, because it only made $20 million domestically and had a budget of about $40 million. Maybe theater audiences weren't ready for this, but I hope it finds a second life on cable, and maybe even develops a cult following down the road, I think it's funny enough (and strange enough) to be remembered. This film also got 6 nominations at the Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, but I don't think that was deserved - it's clearly a parody of cop films, and those should be somewhat exempt. Plus I can name several movies from 2018 that were much worse, like that horrible "Robin Hood" remake, and what about "Welcome to Marwen"? I'd certainly choose re-watching this over "Peter Rabbit", "I Feel Pretty" or "Billionaire Boys Club".
Sure, some screenwriter has no clue about how syndication residuals work, and the impossible logistics of puppets somehow being alive in a human world are flat-out un-workable, but aren't these minor points? But wasn't doing a parody of "Basic Instinct" worn out about 20 years ago?
Also starring Maya Rudolph (also carrying over from "Life of the Party"), Joel McHale (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Elizabeth Banks (last heard in "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part"), Leslie David Baker (last seen in "Wish I Was Here"), Michael McDonald (last seen in "Ghostbusters"), Cynthy Wu (last seen in "Kong: Skull Island"), Mitch Silpa (last seen in "Welcome to Me"), Hemky Madera (last seen in "La La Land"), Ryan Gaul (last seen in "Mascots"), Fortune Feimster (last seen in "Office Christmas Party"), Brian Palermo (last seen in "My Life in Ruins"), with cameos from Jimmy O. Yang (also last seen in "Life of the Party"), Ben Falcone (ditto), Damon Jones (ditto), Steve Mallory (ditto), and the voices of Bill Barretta (last seen in "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey"), Kevin Clash (ditto), Dorien Davies, Drew Massey, Ted Michaels, Colleen Smith, Alice Dinnean (last heard in "Kermit's Swamp Years"), Donna Kimball (last seen in "Jarhead"), Brian Henson (last heard in "Muppets From Space"), Allan Trautman, Patty Guggenheim, Victor Yerrid,
RATING: 6 out of 10 copies of "Puppet Pussy Party" magazine
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