Strays Review: A Ridiculous and Ruff Ride

Who could believe that a movie where realistic-looking dogs talking about poop and sex would be weird? The new Strays film is a ridiculous comedy directed by Josh Greenbaum that follows a dog named Reggie (Will Ferrell), who gets abandoned by his lowlife owner and ventures on a journey of revenge accompanied by his newfound friends. The movie is live-action, with the dogs and other animals in the film looking realistic rather than stylized. Strays is R-rated, and it more than embraces the rating during its 93 minutes of raunchy comedy. 

Strays: A Heartfelt Adventure

The film boasts a terrific cast, with the main four actors giving shining voice performances. As we previously mentioned, Will Ferrell (Barbie) plays the main dog, a Border Terrier named Reggie, while Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained) plays a smart-mouthed Boston Terrier named Bug, Isla Fisher (Scooby-Doo) plays an Australian Shepherd named Maggie, and Randall Park (Aquaman) plays a Great Dane named Hunter. Will Forte (Saturday Night Live) plays Doug, Reggie’s terrible owner, who serves as the antagonist of the film. While he’s extremely one-note, it is thoroughly satisfying to watch him get his comeuppance by the end of the movie. The cast’s performances deliver most of the emotional beats of the film, and their delivery of the jokes sells the humor.

The story of Strays, while fairly simple, packs a decent amount of heart. There are tragic backstories, moral dilemmas, and fulfilling character arcs. The heartfelt moments might be the best parts of the movie, yet that’s what also makes Strays feel the most anachronistic. The story has a main throughline that’s similar to Toy Story. But, because the jokes are aimed at an adult audience, the heartfelt story takes you out of the film. It’s not necessarily a terrible thing – it’s just weird and a little distracting. It’s surprising just how much heart the film has, considering two-thirds of Strays just tell the same two ridiculous jokes over and over again. 

Strays takes toilet humor to a new level, and not in a good way. I don’t have a problem with foul language, but did the dogs really need to be hurling curse words every second sentence? It feels like many of the jokes are either about the dogs humping something, their genitals, pooping, or peeing. When they don’t land, it stretches out the short runtime. 

Poop Jokes or Just Poop?

What ultimately ruins the movie is the design of the animals. At times the dogs look like they’ve been through taxidermy or walked off the set of Pet Sematary. They look devoid of emotion, with the heart of the movie resting on the voice acting, story, and score. There is a part of Strays where the dogs eat some magic mushrooms, and while they are hallucinating, their reality shifts multiple times, including one where the world is a cartoon. I can’t help but think how much more personality would have been inserted into the movie if it was a fully animated film instead. 

The movie still could have been as crass if it was animated – like Sausage Party – with marketing clearly geared towards adults. Seeing the dogs talk about sex and poop was so weird that I actually looked away from the film a few times when it wasn’t a highly visual scene, just so I could focus on the voice performances instead. When they were running around, the dogs looked fine. It was all of the scenes where they were standing around talking to each other that looked strange. If Strays was an animated film, the dogs could have gotten some more personality in their designs that would have fit the stellar voice acting.

Judging the visuals by how they looked, rather than pining for what could have been, Strays looked rather ridiculous. The poop looked realistic enough, which was fine, but whenever an actor besides Will Forte was surrounded by the dogs, it seemed off. Yet, the scene with the mushrooms worked perfectly with the animated and realistic sections. There was also a weird-looking talking couch played by Sofía Vergara for yet another recurring joke that didn’t really land.

Some Bark, Some Bite

The humor in Strays wasn’t all bad. There were jokes that actually managed to land. But the three or four times I was barreled over with laughter were because of some interesting concepts the film introduced, rather than the crass humor shoved into the emotionless carcasses of the animals. Don’t worry – there should be a few crude jokes that will make you chuckle, but the joke-per-minute rate can be quite overwhelming. There are also some clever meta jokes as well as a cameo that plays well, too, not to mention the dog at the end of the movie played by the same actor that voiced a similar dog in a recent animated movie.

The great part about comedies is that if the jokes play for you, there’s a good chance that you’ll walk out satisfied. So, if you’re into ridiculous jokes about dog poop and doggy sex, then there’s a good chance you’ll find Strays worth the watch. If not, maybe catch it at 2 AM when it hits a streaming service. Otherwise, you can catch the new Strays film in theaters on Aug. 18, 2023.