BEFORE: All right, I've got to fill the space between now and Father's Day somehow, I can't just take the week off - anyway that wouldn't really connect with what I have planned. I ended up working the first day of the Tribeca Film Festival, got called in on my day off because someone else called in sick. Hey, I'm happy to take the shift, I was only scheduled for three days of the festival and now I'll end up working four - I still get tomorrow off and then I'll report back on Sunday. I met a woman working the box office who also manages one of the venues at the Sundance Film Festival, and I was able to tell her that I've been there, three times, though it was a couple decades ago and my last time there was 20 years ago. Still, I've got a history, I've been some places and I've done some things.
Dennis Quaid carries over from "Yours, Mine & Ours".
THE PLOT: An abandoned dog teams up with other strays to get revenge on his former owner.
AFTER: I also happen to know two of the producers of this film, because I've been some places and I've done some things - I'm talking about Christopher MIller and Phil Lord, who also produced "The Lego Movie" and the "Spider-Verse" movies and I think maybe also "Cocaine Bear". Chris was an intern for me once upon a time, and then left for L.A. and has had a tremendous career ever since, except it seems that "Strays" maybe didn't really catch on. It's adult-themed animation, and I can attest that's a VERY difficult demographic to target - I mean, come on, dogs are cute and kids love dogs and everybody loves dogs, but if that dog movie gets an "R" rating, well you've lost half of your audience right there. Mom & Dad just aren't going to be bringing their three kids to the movies to see talking dogs drop a lot of f-bombs.
This film uses the "talking animal" form of animation, where I assume they film real dogs doing tricks and then animate the mouths, or maybe the whole thing is CGI, I don't know, they're doing wonderful things with animating fur now so that it looks super-realistic and you can't tell it's CGI - unless it's that horrible fake-looking mountain lion seen in "Me Time". OK, the IMDB trivia section confirms these were REAL dogs used for about 95% of the shots in this film. Good to know.
I started this Movie Year with a film called "The Worst Person in the World", but that was largely a metaphor for how people feel about themselves when they break up with their romantic partners, but this film may genuinely have a character who is "The Worst Dog Owner in the World". His name is Doug and he blames his puppy Reggie for the break-up of his relationship, as Reggie walked into a room carrying a pair of women's underwear that his girlfriend did NOT own or recognize, which meant that Doug had another woman over for sexy time. His girflriend then wanted to take Reggie when she moved out, but Doug kept the dog JUST to spite her, and not because he loved or even liked the dog. Then Doug got depressed and stopped paying his bills and couldn't afford to live there any more, so he got an eviction notice, and if you trace it back, well that's the dog's fault in Doug's mind, because he can't possibly blame himself for all of his problems that he caused.
So Doug keeps throwing Reggie's ball further and further away, then driving an hour with him in the truck just to throw the ball, believing that Reggie won't find his way back this time. But, NITPICK POINT, wouldn't it be easier just to take Reggie to a shelter? Sure, it's a shitty thing to do, but it's easier than driving the dog three hours away just to toss him out of the truck. And he won't find his way home from the shelter, just saying. Anyway, at some point Reggie can't find his way back to Doug, but remains optimistic that he someday will. Instead he finds Bug, who saves him from some bullying Rottweilers and teaches him the rules of being a stray dog.
At the dog park, Reggie and Bug meet two more friends, Maggie and Hunter and they have wild nights where they eat garbage and drink beer from dumpsters and then end up peeing on each other in some kind of weird dog bonding ritual. Through his friendship with the other dogs, Reggie eventually figures out that his owner Doug was a bad person, and though he doesn't deserve the love of a dog, Reggie still wants to return to him, but with a new mission, to bite his dick off. Well, it's good to have goals, I guess.
There are some funny moments here, but the film keeps going back to the well of the most basic things we know about dogs - that they love humping things, they don't mind eating garbage and that they poop a lot. Every solution to one of their problems as they make their way back to Doug's place seems to revolve around one of these things. When they're captured and put in an animal shelter, they can't get out by humping or eating, so the only thing left they can try is pooping, and whaddaya know, it works somehow. It's disgusting and the shelter employee ends up covered in poop, but if all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail.
Oh yeah, dogs also like to play with toys, and many dogs are good with kids. They also have keen senses of smell, so they're able to locate that girl scout who got lost in the woods, and then they can bark really loud so the police dogs can find them. Such good doggos! I can't help but think that Bug's back-story seemed very familiar, I could swear I saw something very similar in another film, was it "The Secret Life of Pets 2"? Not sure. Anyway, Bug ends up being adopted by that Girl Scout, and Reggie remains a stray so he can teach younger pups about how to live out on the street and maintain a positive attitude.
This feels like the kind of movie that got made during the pandemic - there are not a lot of stars in the live-action, and there's not usually more than one human in a scene. Of course most of the film features the dogs, and the voices were recorded later in sound studios, and there wouldn't be as many COVID restrictions this way, each star could just record their lines separately.
Also starring Will Forte (last seen in "That's My Boy"), Brett Gelman (last seen in "Without Remorse"), Charity Cervantes, Jade Fernandez, Mikayla Rousseau, Mike Dolphy, Aven Lotz, Hannah Alline (last seen in "The Hunt"), Garrett Hines (last seen in "Trumbo"), Dan Perrault (last seen in "The Company Men"), Keith Brooks (last seen in "The Tomorrow War"), Hedy Nasser, Dexter Masland, Ryan Dinning (last seen in "They Cloned Tyrone"), AJ Bernard
and the voices of Will Ferrell (last seen in "Barbie"), Jamie Foxx (last seen in "They Cloned Tyrone"), Isla Fisher (last seen in "Blithe Spirit"), Randall Park (last seen in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom"), Rob Riggle (last seen in "Just Before I Go"), Josh Gad (last seen in "The Wedding Ringer"), Sofia Vergara (last seen in "The Female Brain"), Jamie Demetriou (also last seen in "Barbie"), Greta Lee (last heard in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Jimmy Tatro (last seen in "The Wolf of Snow Hollow"), Harvey Guillen (last heard in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish"), Jack de Sanz, Phil Morris (last heard in "Teen Titans GO! To the Movies'), David Herman (last heard in "The Bob's Burgers Movie"), Jaquita Ta'le (last heard in ""Pinocchio" (2022).
RATING: 5 out of 10 dropped pizza slices
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