So, I’m not sure where else to put this, so I’ll stick it here: I have seen and/or heard quite a bit of actor Harvey Guillén of late. Beyond his great role as frustrated familiar/wannabe vampire Guillermo on the fantasticly funny TV version of What We Do in the Shadows, he has been voicing an alternately insecure and overconfident Nightwing on Max’s adult animated Harley Quinn series, had a supporting role in the new Blue Beetle, and also voiced a tiny chihuahua for a moment or two at the end of the new R-rated talking dog comedy Strays. The two TV shows get high recommendations from me, the superhero movie was decent but nothing to rush out for, and as for the dog comedy…
Well, I saw that last. And here we are.
Border Terrier Reggie (voice of Will Ferrell) thinks his life is great with human owner Doug (Will Forte). Reggie just can’t seem to understand that perpetual loser and scumbag Doug really doesn’t like him. Doug likes taking Reggie far away from home, tossing a tennis ball, and then going home. Small problem for Doug: Reggie keeps returning. So, Doug drives three hours off and tries the trick in a city, and this time, Reggie isn’t quite sure where he is or how to get home. Fortunately, he meets up with Boston Terrier Bug (voice of Jamie Foxx), a stray who tries to get Reggie to realize Doug was no good. He gets help from cone-wearing, therapy Great Dane Hunter (voice of Randall Park) and Australian Shepherd Maggie (voice of Ilsa Fisher), the lone female in the group who has a fantastic sense of smell.
However, Reggie does eventually realize Doug was bad, and now he has a new plan: get back to Doug and bite his genitals off. He remembers, in his own doggie way, various landmarks along the way, and with his new friends to keep him focused, he can get his revenge. If that’s what he really wants, of course. Reggie seems to waiver a bit as time goes on. Meanwhile, Hunter’s insecurities over his cone keep getting in the way of a possible relationship with Maggie, and Bug’s own issues with humans may be coloring his view of the situation. Can these hard-drinking, hard-swearing dogs get what they need out of life?
So, I have seen more than a few R-rated comedies that involve a group of friends causing trouble for themselves as they reach some new understanding about life. That’s pretty much every Judd Apatow comedy. It could be the The 40-Year-Old Virgin with some adult men, Bridesmaids for adult women, Superbad for teenage boys, Book Smart for teenage girls, and Good Boys for preadolescent boys. On the surface, Strays looks like basically the same sort of comedy with dogs. Why not? As animals go, dogs can be very emotive and trainable. However, Strays is also something of a parody of the recent mini-genre of heart-warming talking dog movies, to the point where Dennis Quaid, human star of a couple of them, has a cameo here as himself.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that well. I found it only sporadically funny at best. It could be I just don’t tend to find poop jokes funny, but it really did come across as an often unfocused. The talking dog elements only popped up a couple times, and the rest felt like something I had seen many times with humans while making the characters dogs didn’t make the movie any more or less funny. I did chuckle a couple times, mostly at the moments involving the talking dog parody bits, but overall, this was a comedy that didn’t seem all that funny, and that’s pretty much a deathknell for a movie of that genre.
Grade: C
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