There’s a long history of live-action films featuring talking animals, and the vast majority of them are for kids. Strays, on the other hand, presupposes that adults feel left out and want one for themselves, and thus delivers pooch comedy of an R-rated variety. Alas, any grown-up’s desire for such material will be swiftly neutered by Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar director Josh Greenbaum’s latest (in theaters Aug. 18), which despite boasting the participation of genuinely funny people like Will Ferrell, Jaime Foxx, Isla Fisher, and Randall Park is a mirthless mutt of a movie.
Strays’ conceit is that its anthropomorphic dogs curse, speak profanely about sex, and defecate and urinate on all sorts of things—including themselves. Its prime potty mouth is Bug (Foxx), a Boston terrier who resides on the streets and lives by three rules: if you want something, pee on it; if you desire something, hump it; and without a master, you’re on your own.
Bug is a champion of uninhibited freedom, although as voiced by Foxx he’s mostly just an irreverent tough guy who thinks it’s hilarious to drop the F-bomb in every single sentence. While well-timed and inventive cursing can certainly be amusing, Dan Perrault’s dismal script uses it as a crutch to amplify the action’s naughtiness quotient and, as is soon painfully apparent, to compensate for an absence of actual wit.
Bug is a dreary expletive factory who elicits nary a chuckle, and the fact that he’s Strays’ main vehicle for outrageousness says much about the film. He’s not, however, the protagonist of Greenbaum’s dud, as that would be Reggie (Ferrell), a border terrier who, at tale’s outset, lives with Doug (Will Forte), a human who reluctantly agreed to have a pet in order to please his girlfriend and, once that relationship went south due to his two-timing, kept him out of spite.
Doug is a loser who lives in squalor, endlessly smokes pot and masturbates, and mistreats his dog. Yet to Reggie, he’s a loving owner—something the dim-witted protagonist continues to believe even once Doug decides to ditch him by playing fetch in far-off areas and then driving away before Reggie returns with his favorite tennis ball.
After multiple failed attempts, Doug finally abandons Reggie in a distant metropolis. Reggie assumes his sorry situation is his own fault, and at this and other moments, he comes across as a victim of domestic abuse. Unfortunately, the film is so lame that it doesn’t mine that dynamic for obvious dogs-are-like-humans gags. Instead, Reggie’s quasi-battered-spouse syndrome is simply a sign that he’s a naïve nitwit, and Ferrell’s performance casts him as a four-legged version of Elf’s lost-in-the-city Buddy.
This is further evidence of the proceedings’ lack of imagination, which is echoed by Stray’s visuals. Though collaborating with accomplished cinematographer Tim Orr, Greenbaum comes up with nothing but inert, straightforward compositions, and considering the aesthetic wonder of predecessors like Babe and its eye-popping sequel, such dullness can’t be blamed on the logistical difficulties of working with trained animals.
Bug discovers Reggie in an alley and takes him under his wing, teaching him how to survive in the urban jungle and introducing him to his friends Maggie (Fisher), an Australian shepherd with a terrific sense of smell who’s lost favor with her superficial owner, and Hunter (Park), a Great Dane who serves as a therapy dog and wears a cone around his head due to his anxiety.
Together, they bond at a local pizzeria, where they eat scraps and get drunk on beer. This is supposed to be all-caps WACKY (because, you see, they’re dogs! Getting wasted!), and so too are their ensuing hijinks, from puking and crapping to dry-humping every object in sight, whether it’s a couch (Bug’s preferred partner) or a garden gnome (which Reggie randomly decides is his son). There’s also a running joke about the impressive size of Hunter’s member, culminating in a scene in which the Great Dane tries to break the quartet out of animal-control jail by snagging keys with his boner.
Poop, pee, and penises are the chief things on Strays’ juvenile mind, and even when it takes off in a legitimately random direction—such as a cameo from a bird-watching Dennis Quaid or a bit with a narration-obsessed dog who admits something shocking about his owner—it falls flat. Reggie, Bug, Maggie and Hunter talk like people but they don’t quite understand the human world; Bug, for example, suspects that men and women collect their pet’s doo-doo to make chocolate.
Their cluelessness, however, is never cleverly exploited, and the wan jabs at other talking-dog movies (namely, Marley & Me) come across as easy digs. For the most part, the four merely stroll along from one lackluster scenario to another, saying and doing things that are too childish and corny to entertain adults and too inappropriate to appeal to kids.
Strays’ story eventually involves Reggie realizing that Doug is a prick and deciding to seek revenge against the man…by biting off his private parts. The film is outright obsessed with genitalia, if incapable of doing anything entertaining about it.
Consequently, though the climax makes good on the plot’s promise (and then some, courtesy of some embellishing excrement), there’s no joy to be had, only depression wrought from the fact that so many talented stars—as well as 21 Jump Street and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse masterminds Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, here serving as producers—found anything attractive about this project. Of its numerous players, Brett Gelman (as an animal-control guard) may fare the absolute worst, forced to slip-and-slide about in feces in what may be the year’s most thankless role.
Amazingly, Strays’ canine characters find a way to make everything groan-worthy, be it tripping on mushrooms, committing accidental homicide, clashing with a ferocious eagle and jerky K-9 officers, and leaping and strutting about in slow-motion set to hip-hop soundtrack songs. In case you hadn’t heard, they also cuss—as will anyone foolish enough to spend time with this mongrel.
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