STRAYS : Tuesday 22nd August 2023

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'STRAYS' earlier this week, and this American adult comedy film is Co-Produced and Directed by Josh Greenbaum whose debut as a feature film maker was 'The Short Game' in 2013, which he would follow up with 'Becoming Bond' in 2017, 'Too Funny to Fail : The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show' in 2017 and 'Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar' in 2021. The film was released in the US and here in Australia last week, has so far grossed US$12.5M off the back of a production budget of US$46M and has generated mixed or average critical reviews. 

Reggie is an over trusting Border Terrier dog (voiced by Will Ferrell) living with his owner Doug (Will Forte), a down and out drug addict who spends his time smoking bongs, jacking off to internet porn and getting drunk. Despite Doug only keeping him around to spite an ex-girlfriend he himself cheated on, Reggie is under the impression that Doug really loves him and does everything he can to make him happy, much to Doug's constant frustration. 

After Doug is served an eviction notice on the run down shack he calls a home, Reggie accidentally knocks over some packing boxes and in the process destroys Doug's favoured bong. Doug makes several attempts to ditch Reggie in the wild, which Reggie views as a game called 'fetch and fuck' with Doug lobbing the ball into the bush for Reggie to 'fetch' and then he brings the ball home and drops it at Doug's feet he is always greeted with 'oh fuck!' And so Doug in a final attempt to rid himself of Reggie once and for all, drives a long way from home to a big city, lobbs the ball down an alleyway and then drives off as Reggie is chasing his ball. 

Losing track of Doug, Reggie runs into a street-wise Boston Terrier dog named Bug (voiced by Jamie Foxx), who looks sympathetically upon Reggie and takes him under his wing. After a night out on the town as part of Reggie's initiation into the world of stray dogs with an Australian Shepherd dog named Maggie (Isla Fisher) and a therapy Great Dane dog called Hunter (voiced by Randall Park) who permanently wears a plastic cone around his head, Reggie gradually comes to realise that Doug was not the nice owner he believed him to be. And so Reggie decides to get revenge on Doug by ripping his dick off, with the other strays agreeing to join him for support. However, he hardly knows the way home, with his only clues being a giant hamster wheel (a county fair Ferris wheel), a giant cone (a hill), and a devil floating in the sky (a billboard advertising a picture of a mail delivery man).

During the journey, the group begin to bond as they get into a number of crazy situations, culminating in them getting caught by Animal Control after a hunger induced frenzy caused them to chow down on magic mushrooms which results in them hallucinating and mauling a family of rabbits to death, thinking they were stuffed toys. 

During their captivity, Bug admits that he used to have a family own him, but was forced to escape when they tried to put him down after he bit the daughter on the ankle after she trod on his paw (though he fails to comprehend what he did wrong). Following a rousing speech by Reggie to get all the other dogs in the pound to band together to hatch a plan to escape, they all shit on the floor knowing that Willy (Brett Gelman) the Animal Control Officer will be forced to enter the pound to clean up their mess. But Willy is overwhelmed by the smell and the sheer sight of all those dog turds that he slips up and ends flat on his back so leaving the all the strays the opportunity to make a bolt for it, and they do. 

After escaping the pound, Reggie's bad habits from Doug's abuse resurface when a hallucination of Doug from the high he experienced convinces him that his mistreatment was somehow his fault, leading to a falling out between Bug and him, with Maggie and Hunter left to witness the fallout. And so Reggie goes off in search of Doug to make amends, Bug ventures off on his own into the nearby forest, leaving Maggie and Hunter to begin the long walk home back to the big city. 

Reggie makes his way back to Doug, but Doug, having grown very tired of having to put up with the dog, does what he can to kill Reggie outright with a baseball bat. Fortunately, Bug, Hunter and Maggie arrive in the nick of time. Hunter shakes off his plastic cone and attacks Doug pining him down with his front paws while Maggie and Bug each grab a leg prising them apart so that Reggie can successfully rip Doug's dick off. Hunter turns round and takes a dump straight into Doug's mouth as he writhes around while Reggie bites on his dick. In the meantime, the house has ignited, and a bloodied Doug comes stumbling out the front door with his bloodied crotch, his face covered in dog poo and his house ablaze. The dogs decide it's time to get the hell outta Dodge, as a telegraph pole comes crashing down on Doug's pick-up truck.

In the aftermath, the strays begin to move on. Maggie begins training as a Police Dog and starts a relationship with Hunter, Bug is adopted by a missing Girl Scout he helped rescue, and Reggie resigns himself to being a stray and helps other new strays adjust to their life on the streets. In a mid-credits sequence Doug is seen in hospital all bandaged up. The Doctor says that they found faecal matter in his mouth and throat and that they were unable to reattach his penis, to which Doug shouts out 'oh fuck!'. 

'Strays' will not be for everyone, and for this movie you definitely want to be leaving the kids at home. This film is filled with more F-bombs and more dogs peeing and pooping and humping than anything I have ever seen before. Not that there's anything wrong with that if taken in the context of the film and the antics of these everyday stray mutts. As a dog owner myself I found myself chuckling at some of the sight gags and the one liners that I can easily relate to, but as for laugh out loud comedy then this film, for me, failed to hit those high notes. That said, this film has heart and an endearing emotional core that help elevate it above an also-ran movie, and with a brisk run time of 93 minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome - unlike Reggie! Also starring Josh Gad, Rob Riggle, Sofia Vergara and a cameo appearance by Dennis Quaid playing Dennis Quaid.

'Strays' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP : QUANTUMANIA - Tuesday 21st February 2023.

I saw 'ANT-MAN AND THE WASP : QUANTUMANIA' this week, and this M-Rated American superhero film is based on the Marvel Comics characters of Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man) and Hope van Dyne (aka The Wasp) and is the direct sequel to 2015's 'Ant-Man' and 2018's 'Ant-Man and The Wasp', is the 31st entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the lunching film of Phase Five of the MCU. As with the two previous films, Peyton Reed returns as Director for this third instalment. The film saw its Premier screening in Los Angeles on the 6th February, before its worldwide release last week, having gained mixed Reviews from critics, although it has so far earned US$288M off the back of a production budget of US$200M, making it the third highest grossing film of 2023 so far. 

The film begins with the back story of Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) trapped for some thirty years in the Quantum Realm, where one day she encounters Kang (Jonathan Majors) an exiled traveller who crash lands his craft, and who explains that they can both escape from the Realm if she helps him repair the Multiversal Power Core that is necessary for him to leave and for Janet to return to Earth to be reunited with her daughter. After many attempts to repair it have failed they one day have success but as Janet plugs in the power core she sees a vision of Kang conquering and destroying entire timelines. Kang reveals he was exiled by his own variants out of fear, which leads Janet to turn on him. Outmatched, Janet uses her Pym Particles to enlarge the Power Core and therefore render it useless.

Back in the present day and following the Battle of Earth, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has become a successful memoirist having penned a best selling autobiography titled 'Look Out For The Little Guy' which charts his adventures with The Avengers, and has been living happily with his girlfriend, Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly). Scott's now-teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) has become a political activist, resulting in her doing jail time before being bailed out by her father. While visiting Hope's parents, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet, Cassie reveals that she has been working on a mechanism that can establish a link to the Quantum Realm. 

When demonstrating how the device works, Janet panics and shuts it down, but contact had already been established so opening up a portal which sucks Janet, Hank, Cassie, Hope and Scott down into the Quantum Realm. Scott and Cassie land together and are found by natives who are rebelling against their ruler, while Hope, Janet, and Hank land in close proximity elsewhere and set off to a sprawling city to find Scott and Cassie. 

Hope, Janet, and Hank meet with Lord Krylar (Bill Murray), a former close friend of Janet's, who explains that things have changed since she left, and that he now answers to Kang, who is now the Realm's ruler. The three are forced to flee and steal Krylar's ship. The Langs, meanwhile, are told by rebel leader Jentorra (Katy O'Brian) that Janet's involvement with Kang is indirectly responsible for his rise to power. The rebels soon come under attack by Kang's forces led by M.O.D.O.K. (Mechanised Organism Designed Only for Killing), who is revealed to be Darren Cross (Corey Stoll), having survived his apparent death at Scott's hands when he was unevenly shrunken to subatomic size in the Quantum Realm and became a mutated, cybernetically enhanced individual with an oversized head. 

Scott and Cassie are taken to Kang, who has them detained in cells. He demands that Scott helps get his power core back and restore it to its normal workable size or else he will kill Cassie. Scott is taken to the core's location and shrinks down. Once inside he is overwhelmed by a mass of variants of himself, but Hope arrives and helps him gain the power core and using several Pym Particles reduces it in size. Kang, surprise surprise, reneges on his deal with Scott, and captures Janet and destroys her ship with Hank on it. 

After being rescued by his ants, who were also pulled into the Quantum Realm, they evolved rapidly, and became hyper-intelligent, Hank helps Scott and Hope as they make their way to Kang, aided in vast numbers by an army of ants, and Scott who has grown to an enormous size that he towers over Kang's domain. Cassie rescues Jentorra and they begin an offensive uprising against Kang and his army. During the fight, Cassie convinces Cross to turn sides and fight Kang, though he sacrifices his own life in the process.

Janet is able to fix the power core as she, Hank, Hope, and Cassie jump through a portal home, but Kang appears before Scott is able to make the jump and attacks him nearly beating him into submission. Hope returns and, together with Scott, destroy the power core and knock Kang into it, causing him to be pulled into oblivion. Cassie reopens the portal at her end for Scott and Hope to return home. As Scott happily resumes his life, he begins to rethink what he was told about Kang's death being the start of something terrible happening, but quickly dismisses the notion as he joins the family to celebrate Cassie's unbirthday at a restaurant, making up for all her birthday's that Scott missed. Remember to remain in your seat for the customary mid-credits and end credits sequences. 

'Ant-Man and The Wasp : Quantumania' is everything you have come to expect from a big budget, big spectacle MCU offering, with its heavy handed use of CGI to build a world and all the fantastical creatures and structures contained within it, to its use of A-list acting talent to give the film gravitas, to the introduction of a new cosmic villain that we are likely to see across multiple MCU films into the future in Kang the Conqueror all wrapped up with Scott Lang's quirky and not too serious take on his world and his new found place as an Avenger. All of that said, there is so much seemingly endless spectacle on screen here, that at times it's difficult to keep track of exactly what is going on. The story is also pedestrian and predictable and the plot is thin on the ground and seems to serve no other purpose than to introduce us to a new super villain and establish the next phase of the MCU. However, at a lean 123 minutes running time it doesn't outstay its welcome.

'Ant-Man and The Wasp : Quantumania' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-