Movie reviews: 'Strays,' 'Blue Beetle,' 'The Monkey King,' 'Back on the Strip'

Movie reviews: 'Strays' is a deeply silly movie that fully embraces its extreme side

STRAYS: 3 ½ STARS

If you have seen the trailer for “Strays,” 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 haven’t seen the trailer, think of it as an animal road trip movie like “The Incredible Journey” minus the family-friendly bits. Or maybe as a riff on “The Adventures of Milo and Otis” 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, “the best owner in the world,” 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 doesn’t understand that he’s being abandoned. He thinks they’re playing another long-distance game of fetch, and is determined to return to Doug and win the game.

Trouble is, he’s 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 doesn’t trust humans. He was abandoned, and believes humans harvest dog poop to make chocolate.

Reggie’s new friends convince him that Doug has abandoned him. “Take it from me, kid,” Bug says, “he left your ass.” In disbelief, Reggie mumbles, “That would mean Doug doesn’t love me.”

His world turned upside down, Reggie vows to get revenge on his former owner.

“You’re a stray,” Bug says. “You can do whatever you want.”

I think it is a safe bet to crown “Strays” the most adorable, yet rudest movie of the year. Reggie and his pals are a cute canine quartet but the film’s “beyond the chain” 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. It’s 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 “Elf” 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. He’s a lovable waif, so the movie’s revenge fantasy angle plays well, but the real appeal here is his open-hearted way of viewing the world.

Ferrell is ably supported by Reggie’s new friends. Fisher and Park, are a flirty and often filthy duo, but it is Foxx’s 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.

“Strays” is not “Marley and Me.” It’s 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 “Blue Beetle,” a DC superhero movie now playing in theatres, breaks with tradition.

“My family? That’s what makes me strong,” says Jaime Reyes a.k.a. Blue Beetle.

When we first meet Reyes, played by “Cobra Kai” 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.

“The universe has sent you a gift,” says Uncle Rudy Reyes (George Lopez), “and you have to figure out what to do with it. Maybe this time we get our own superhero.”

Trouble is, Jaime doesn’t want to be a superhero, despite being chosen by the Scarab. “How do we get it to un-choose me?” he asks.

Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), the super villainous CEO of Kord Industries, understands the power of the Scarab and Jaime’s Blue Beetle, and knows how to take control of it.

“Target the [Reyes] family!” she says.

“Blue Beetle” 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 “aw-shucks” 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 Maridueña’s show.

Culturally “Blue Beetle” 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, “The Monkey King” 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.

“An old geezer once told me, ‘You don’t belong here,’” he says. “And he was right. I belong with the Immortal ones. I’ll become legendary and then they’ll have to accept me.”

Trouble is, to get the attention of the Immortals, led by the Jade Emperor (Hoon Lee), he’ll have to defeat at least 100 demons.

“One hundred demons,” he says, “coming up!”

Despite being told by his elder (James Sie) to, “know your place, young one,” the braggadocious warrior sets off with a rallying call of “Anyone need a hero?”

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).

“Whatever the Monkey King does,” he says, “I do big!”

“The Monkey King” 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 demons—literal and personal—as a way to assuage his feelings of seclusion from his peers who wouldn’t accept him for who he is. It provides the film’s emotional core, even if the movie’s 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 “Emperor's New Groove.”

“The Monkey King” 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 “Back on the Strip,” 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 title’s insinuation is hard to understand.

Which is to say, not at all.

In this “Full Monty” 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 “the Michael Jordan of comedy,” 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 he’s 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.

“Now with a man with something big in front of him,” says Luther as he intros Merlin. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about his future… Mr. Black Magic.”

Merlin’s 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?

“Back on the Strip” is not a subtle movie. From Haddish’s raunchy narration to the predictable plot points, it’s clear writer-director Chris Spence (and co-writer is Eric Daniel) aren’t looking to reinvent the raunchy comedy wheel. It’s a mix of sweet and sour, romance for the heart and the raunchy stuff—it’s like Spencer consulted the Double Entendre Dictionary when writing Haddish’s dialogue—for 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 what’s going to happen in this movie long before any of it actually happens and we don’t need Haddish’s expository, non-stop narration to let us know what’s going on.

Simply put, “Back on the Strip” does not have any of Mike’s magic.

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