Hoo boy. It’s been a while since we’ve dealt with some talking animal shit on here, eh? That sub-genre that I keep running into and keep being aghast at just how bad it can get. And on top of that, we’re not dealing with an animated film; instead, we’ve got 2000s-era CGI work meant to make real-life dogs look like they’re talking, as if the non-existence movement above the nose-line doesn’t break the illusion every single time. Yeah, suffice to say, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of watching this, but to its credit, it does have some merit to it. Just not in any of the obvious places.
This is basically the ‘mature’ answer to the Dog’s Purpose Cinematic Universe, with the same canine POV dialogue and story but with as much cussing as can be squeezed into just over ninety minutes. Much like the visual presentation, the sense of humour here feels at least a decade or two out of step with the more modern progression for American comedy films. As much as Isla Fisher sporting an exaggerated Strine accent as part of the main group should be enough to annoy me into an angry coma, it doesn’t help that the specific dialogue not only aims for blue for the sake of blue, but brings up dog jokes that are especially dusty by this point. I get the feeling that I’ve heard almost all of the gags in this film at some point before.
Where this gets a little more complicated is that… well, when it actively tries to talk smack about the Dog’s Purpose formula, it ends up doing that same kind of sentimentality but better. It’s quite clear that that’s the goal here, from the gag about a ‘Narrator’ dog (voiced by Josh Gad, who voiced the main dog in Dog’s Purpose) to a cameo from Dennis Quaid as himself. From there, the way it looks into the relationship between Reggie (Will Ferrell) and his owner Doug (Will Forte) hits some similar points as Renfield in highlighting a toxic domestic situation through an absurdist lens. Add to that the other potential outcomes we see dogs dealing with, both from owners and even from themselves, and… honestly, for a film this juvenile, it has a surprising amount of emotional impact to it. I wasn’t laughing as much at the constant references to Reggie biting Doug’s dick off, but that was mainly because I was just waiting for that actual fucking monster to get what’s coming to him. I developed that much of a fondness for these dogs.
Hell, even with how dated the jokes are, I’ll concede that it avoids some of the bigger clichés of American comedy on-film that I tend to have a bad reaction to. More times than not, a lot of seeming one-off jokes and remarks are followed up on and usually lead to a pay-off later on, making the whole thing feel like less of a prolonged improv exercise and more like something with an actual beginning, middle, and end to it. The only thing I noticed that doesn’t get followed up on is with the Narrator dog describing a serial killer, and I’m only surprised by that because… well, we do get more than one scene of grievous bodily harm in this thing.
I’m honestly kind of torn on this one. Taken at face value, as a comedy about how funny it is when dogs say the word “Fuck” over and over, it’s pretty slight and not exactly brimming with fresh or interesting material. It lands on a couple of interesting gags, like a dick joke that feels like a response to a similar scene in Tenacious D: The Pick Of Destiny, but it’s mostly a lot of old stuff. But when it takes time to make the audience care about the dogs making those jokes, their relationships with their owners and with each other, it is way more effective than it has any right to be, given what it’s sharing screen time with. There’s also something about how it actively points out the treacle inherent in the Dog’s Purpose formula, along with its use of animal abuse for cheap drama, that makes its own dramatic moments feel like they were earned.
It’s like a really sweet and affectionate dog that has a habit of pissing on the rug; it’ll definitely have to sit in the corner for a bit, but I still love it anyway.
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