Film Review

Strays (2023) — juvenile canine comedy

An abandoned dog sets out to take revenge on his former owner…

Any live-action film about talking animals has a hard act to follow in Cats and Dogs (2001), and Josh Greenbaum’s Strays poses no threat to the genre’s Citizen Kane (Citizen Canine?). This film isn’t marketed at children yet its idea of “adult comedy” is dominated by toilet humour and sex words, all familiar and uncreative, used over and over to the point their snigger value is exhausted.

There’s occasionally smarter humour from Dan Perrault’s screenplay, but it’s very occasional, and the movie — not to be confused with Nathaniel Martello-White’s horror The Strays (2023), also heavy-handed in a different way — seriously drags even at a mere 93 minutes.

It’s a pity because when Strays isn’t vainly trying to get a reaction from the umpteenth repetition of a four-letter word, there are some good comic ideas here and engaging characterisations from the voice cast. But the actors are overwhelmed by the low-bar material.