STRAYS: 3 ½ STARS
If you have seen the trailer for âStrays,â a new comedy starring a pack of very cute dogs and the voices of Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, you know what you are in for.
If you havenât seen the trailer, think of it as an animal road trip movie like âThe Incredible Journeyâ minus the family-friendly bits. Or maybe as a riff on âThe Adventures of Milo and Otisâ with raunchy dialogue that would make Snoop Dogg blush.
Ferrell is trusting Border Terrier Reggie. He lives with Doug (Will Forte), a cruel owner who only puts up with the dog because his girlfriend adopted him from a local general store. The goodhearted Reggie calls Doug, âthe best owner in the world,â despite the fact that their game of fetch involves stranding Reggie far away from home to see if he can find his way back.
When the girlfriend leaves, Doug wants Reggie gone. He leaves the gullible dog to fend for himself on the street three hours away from home, alone and unloved. But Reggie doesnât understand that heâs being abandoned. He thinks theyâre playing another long-distance game of fetch, and is determined to return to Doug and win the game.
Trouble is, heâs hopelessly lost. Dog-gone it.
On his journey Reggie meets Bug, a street-wise Boston Terrier, who runs with a pack of stray dogs that includes an Australian Shepherd named Maggie (Isla Fisher), and a therapy Great Dane named Hunter (Randall Park). Bug doesnât trust humans. He was abandoned, and believes humans harvest dog poop to make chocolate.
Reggieâs new friends convince him that Doug has abandoned him. âTake it from me, kid,â Bug says, âhe left your ass.â In disbelief, Reggie mumbles, âThat would mean Doug doesnât love me.â
His world turned upside down, Reggie vows to get revenge on his former owner.
âYouâre a stray,â Bug says. âYou can do whatever you want.â
I think it is a safe bet to crown âStraysâ the most adorable, yet rudest movie of the year. Reggie and his pals are a cute canine quartet but the filmâs âbeyond the chainâ jokes and situations, mostly involving poop, vomit and doggie sex, are anything but sweet. It is a raunchy coming-of-age story as Reggie learns from his new friends that everyone has worth. Itâs a great message, laced with laughs, for those with a high tolerance for poop-and-scoop humor.
As Reggie, Ferrell revisits the naiveté of the âElfâ era. The unsophisticated Border Terrier is a wide-eyed innocent, unaware of the ways of the world. He sees the good in everyone, including his hateful owner Doug. Heâs a lovable waif, so the movieâs revenge fantasy angle plays well, but the real appeal here is his open-hearted way of viewing the world.
Ferrell is ably supported by Reggieâs new friends. Fisher and Park, are a flirty and often filthy duo, but it is Foxxâs finely tuned comic delivery that brings the funny. Add to that a truly strange cameo from Dennis Quaid and a ton of shock value, and you have a doggie style movie like no other.
âStraysâ is not âMarley and Me.â Itâs a deeply silly movie that fully embraces its extreme side. There is something inherently funny about watching these adorable dogs saying terrible things and while the humor may not be family friendly, the message that we should be nice to animals or they may do terrible things to us, is a good one.
BLUE BEETLE: 3 STARS
It seems to be an unwritten rule that the best superheroes are birthed from troubled family backstories. Bruce Wayne witnessed the brutal killing of his parents, Spider-Man was orphaned at an early age and Superman was exiled from his home planet of Krypton and never met his parents. The big screen adaptation of âBlue Beetle,â a DC superhero movie now playing in theatres, breaks with tradition.
âMy family? Thatâs what makes me strong,â says Jaime Reyes a.k.a. Blue Beetle.
When we first meet Reyes, played by âCobra Kaiâ star Xolo Maridueña, he is an ambitious recent college grad on the hunt for a job. Back home in Palmera City his family is in financial trouble and Jaime wants to help out.
His job search puts him in contact with a sentient ancient alien relic known as the Scarab, which kind of looks like a fancy broach my mother may have worn in 1978. The powerful, parasitical piece of biotechnology chooses Jaime as its symbiotic host, transforming the young man into the superhero Blue Beetle. Grafted together, Jaime and the Scarab now possess a glowing armor-clad blue suit and powerhouse abilities like flying through space, the manifestation of weapons and more.
âThe universe has sent you a gift,â says Uncle Rudy Reyes (George Lopez), âand you have to figure out what to do with it. Maybe this time we get our own superhero.â
Trouble is, Jaime doesnât want to be a superhero, despite being chosen by the Scarab. âHow do we get it to un-choose me?â he asks.
Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), the super villainous CEO of Kord Industries, understands the power of the Scarab and Jaimeâs Blue Beetle, and knows how to take control of it.
âTarget the [Reyes] family!â she says.
âBlue Beetleâ makes history as the first Latino DC superhero to lead a film, but the freshness that comes along with that is overwhelmed by the usual superhero dross. The emphasis on family gives the movie a nice vibe that sets it apart from other DC movies, but the strength Jaime garners from his family and culture does not strengthen the plot as a whole. It still a superhero origin story. That means it comes weighted down with details, exposition and the usual getting to know you, getting to know all about you, tropes.
It does attempt to go deep with subplots about marginalization, resistance and even a little body horror woven into the story, but again, those elements are overshadowed by the accompanying bombast.
Maridueña cuts a swathe through the CGI noise and fight scenes with considerable charm and kind of an âaw-shucksâ sensibility that grounds his high-flying character. As the comic relief, Lopez gets a few laughs and Sarandon is deliciously amoral as the billionaire villain, but this is Maridueñaâs show.
Culturally âBlue Beetleâ breaks ground in its depiction of Latino culture but as a superhero movie, it is the same old.
THE MONKEY KING: 3 STARS
A fable that pits ego against ambition, acceptance against insecurity, âThe Monkey Kingâ is a new animated Netflix film starring the voices of comedian Jimmy O. Yang and Bowen Yang.
Based on a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming Dynasty attributed to Wu Cheng'en, the film centers around The Monkey King (Jimmy O. Yang), a rebellious monkey born from a magical rock. Filled with an exaggerated sense of self-worth, his ego has alienated him from friends and family.
âAn old geezer once told me, âYou donât belong here,ââ he says. âAnd he was right. I belong with the Immortal ones. Iâll become legendary and then theyâll have to accept me.â
Trouble is, to get the attention of the Immortals, led by the Jade Emperor (Hoon Lee), heâll have to defeat at least 100 demons.
âOne hundred demons,â he says, âcoming up!â
Despite being told by his elder (James Sie) to, âknow your place, young one,â the braggadocious warrior sets off with a rallying call of âAnyone need a hero?â
On his journey to find immortality he looks to the duplicitous Dragon King (Bowen Yang) for help, does battle with Red Girl (Sophie Wu), gets his mighty fighting stick and meets his trusty (but underappreciated) sidekick Lin (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport).
âWhatever the Monkey King does,â he says, âI do big!â
âThe Monkey Kingâ is a big action-adventure, one that moves at the speed of light, filled with wild battle scenes and slapstick humour. But at its heart, it is the story of a search for family, approval and a sense of belonging. The titular character is driven to fighting demonsâliteral and personalâas a way to assuage his feelings of seclusion from his peers who wouldnât accept him for who he is. It provides the filmâs emotional core, even if the movieâs unrelentingly frenetic pace threatens to overwhelm the message. A film that is all peaks and very few valleys, needs a moment or two of introspection. A few more heartfelt scenes between the Monkey King and Lin could have slowed the action, but upped the emotional impact.
The story feels episodic and, despite featuring characters that have endured since the Ming Dynasty, a tad generic in its animated form. Director Anthony Stacchi pumps it up with vibrant animation and production design that mixes familiar CGI art with flavorings of traditional Chinese brushwork, a couple fun Broadway style musical numbers and a collection of voice actors that bring the characters to life, but it reverberates with echoes of similar movies like âEmperor's New Groove.â
âThe Monkey Kingâ has laughs and gags, mostly for young viewers, and diverting well-choreographed martial arts scenes, but offers very little new stuff in its retelling of an old tale.
BACK ON THE STRIP: 2 ½ STARS
The humour in âBack on the Strip,â a new comedy starring Wesley Snipes, Faizon Love and J.B. Smoove as Las Vegas male strippers who return to the stage after a long hiatus, is about as subtle as the titleâs insinuation is hard to understand.
Which is to say, not at all.
In this âFull Montyâ riff, Tiffany Haddish plays Verna, free-spirited mother to Merlin (Spencer Moore II), a wannabe magician whose life is turned upside down when his high school crush Robin (Raigan Harris) announces she is engaged to âthe Michael Jordan of comedy,â on-line prankster Blaze (Ryan Alexander Holmes).
Brokenhearted, he heads to Las Vegas looking to land a gig as a magician. At an impromptu magic gig at a strip club instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, by accident, Merlin pulls, well, something else out of his pants. The revealing moment catches the eye of Luther a.k.a. "Mr. Big" (Snipes), the former leader of a famous Black male stripper crew called The Chocolate Chips, just as heâs thinking of putting the old band back together.
Desperate for a gig, Merlin reluctantly joins the dance crew, keeping it a secret from Verna and Robin, who, despite being engaged, is still in contact.
âNow with a man with something big in front of him,â says Luther as he intros Merlin. âIâm not talking about that. Iâm talking about his future⌠Mr. Black Magic.â
Merlinâs life becomes complicated when Blaze decides to publicly embarrass Merlin and keep Robin all to himself. Will Merlin finally learn how to do things his way? Will he go big or will he go home?
âBack on the Stripâ is not a subtle movie. From Haddishâs raunchy narration to the predictable plot points, itâs clear writer-director Chris Spence (and co-writer is Eric Daniel) arenât looking to reinvent the raunchy comedy wheel. Itâs a mix of sweet and sour, romance for the heart and the raunchy stuffâitâs like Spencer consulted the Double Entendre Dictionary when writing Haddishâs dialogueâfor the other extremities. The only really surprising thing about the movie is how far the script pushes the innuendo.
The willing cast go along for the ride with considerable collective charm. Smoove is a standout, bringing some much-needed unpredictability to every scene he is in.
Unfortunately, the emotional scenes between Merlin and Robin, meant to be heartwarming, are rendered tedious by the predictability of the script. We know whatâs going to happen in this movie long before any of it actually happens and we donât need Haddishâs expository, non-stop narration to let us know whatâs going on.
Simply put, âBack on the Stripâ does not have any of Mikeâs magic.