Just as “Sausage Party” was a raunchy spoof of family-friendly animated films and “The Happytime Murders” was an adults-only puppet crime comedy and “Good Boys” was a foul-mouthed take on middle-school coming-of-age movies and “Ted” was, you know, “Ted,” the R-rated “Strays” is a foul-mouthed and cheerfully gross takeoff on the sentimental talking-dog movie genre, e.g., “A Dog’s Purpose.” All right, OK, that’s a clever enough start, and with Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx as the lead pups, “Strays” delivers a handful of solid chuckles and a few laugh-out-loud moments — but it’s a premise that turns out to be awfully thin for a feature-length film. I mean, there are only so many gags about dogs humping, vomiting and pooping before you just want to give all the strays double treats and tell them it’s time to take a break.
Another problem with “Strays” is the opening sequence, in which a scraggly but adorable Border Terrier named Reggie (Will Ferrell, a master at sounding innocent and naïve and optimistic, which is SO Reggie) tells us about life with his human, Doug (Will Forte), a slovenly, selfish, stupid, no-good crumb-bum lowlife who took possession of Reggie out of spite when his girlfriend left him, and is constantly calling Reggie terrible names, pushing him off the couch and telling him he’s the worst dog ever. There’s no humor, none, zero, to be mined from this sequence, which only gets more heartbreaking when Doug keeps abandoning Reggie, who thinks Doug is playing a game and continues returning home until Doug finally drives so far, to the big city, that Reggie is hopelessly lost and alone.
