Strays

Cute critters saying and doing filthy things is on tap in this hard-R-rated comedy that's definitely not for kids, or adults who like original entertainment.

There’s a certain subset of movies, usually horror and comedies, where after seeing the trailer you feel like you’ve watched the whole flick — or, at least, the best parts. “Strays” is part of this cinematic pack.

This live-action critter comedy is about a foursome of dogs who go on a quest journey to exact revenge upon one mutt’s abusive owner, who abandoned him many miles from home. Specifically, he vows to “bite his dick off,” it being the only thing in this world he seems to love.

If that doesn’t give you a flavor of what the movie is all about, take a couple minutes to watch the trailer yourself:

(You can also try out the red band version for a more unvarnished take.)

It employs a fairly modern but now-familiar gimmick: take aspects of movies typically associated with cutesey-poo family-friendly type of filmmaking, layer in all sorts of blue language, violence and crude sexuality, and ride the laugh wave. We’ve seen it with plenty of animated movies, going back to “Fritz the Cat.”

“Strays” uses computer-generated animation to make the animals’ mouths move when they talk, and also assist with some expressions or movements you can’t achieve with even the best-trained canines Hollywood can buy (…well, rent.)

Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx headline the voice cast, the former using his upper register to get that naive, little-dog-lost tone as Reggie, the border terrier who’s been dumped by his awful human, Doug (Will Forte), a white-trash loser. Reggie cluelessly thinks he’s a terrific human and doesn’t even know his own name because Doug always calls him poop-bag, or a near approximation of that.

Foxx diggs into a brash urban idiom as Bug, a streetwise Boston Terrier stray who takes Reggie under his wing after Doug abandons him in the big city (I think Atlanta). It’s a common movie archetype, the jaded loner who secretly pines for companionship and pushes others away due to past trauma. I felt like I knew Bug’s entire character arc 20 seconds after we meet him.

The other two members of their ersatz family are Maggie (Isla Fisher), a keen-nosed Collie, and Hunter (Randall Park), a mammoth Great Dane who trained to be a police K-9 but wound up as a self-doubting therapy dog for senior citizens. He also wears one of those protective plastic cones, not due to injury but because it makes him feel safe.

One of the movie’s running jokes is that Maggie and Hunter are hot for each other, in no small part due to Hunter’s very big one. Oddly, for a movie titled “Strays,” Maggie and Hunter are overly depicted as having comfortable homes with humans, which they somehow sneak out of to go on the multi-day jaunt with Bug and Reggie.

Again, if you’ve seen the trailer you have already experienced a mini-version of their entire odyssey: humping lawn decorations, eating hallucinogenic mushrooms, eagle attacks, carnival fireworks, and lots and lots of puking, peeing and pooping.

There are some genuinely funny moments in “Strays,” such as a breakout from the dog pound using purely organic resources. And a few snappy one-liners here and there, such as “Technically, all of our mothers are bitches.”

Director Josh Greenbaum and Dan Perrault come from the filmmaking family of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, best known for “The LEGO Movie” and “Spider-verse” Marvel movies. Their M.O. is extremely fast-paced humor, but even so I often found things dragging during the doggie dialogue scenes setting up the next round of hijinx.

Tonally, it’s a strange movie that seems ideally suited for a very specific audience: people who revel in raunchy, juvenile humor. To my mind that’s basically age 14 to early 20s. I admit to still liking this sort of thing myself, but it’s hard to sustain my enthusiasm for it over a feature-length movie.

I think “Strays” would’ve worked better toning down the language and sex stuff enough to get a PG-13 rating and capture a bigger slice of the older-kid market — at least, those who could convince their parents to take them to it. My 10-year-old was very disappointed I didn’t bring him to the screening, though in retrospect I’m glad I didn’t.

But Siskel’s First Rule of Film Criticism is review the movie they made, not the one you wish they had. On that note, “Strays” has its LOL moments but fails to sniff out anything very interesting or original.