A one-note joke will get performed advert nauseam in Genndy Tartakovsky’s R-rated animated comedy “Mounted.” Tartakovsky, finest identified for shepherding the “Lodge Transylvania” franchise, presents a premise with some promise: a canine discovers he’s scheduled to be neutered the following day and units out to have the most effective night time of his life. Cue loads of naughty, raucous hijinks and extra humping than you ever thought you’d see in a household of speaking animals. Sadly, the movie leans so onerous on its central gag that it runs out of steam lengthy earlier than the credit roll. There’s solely a lot animated nutsack one can endure earlier than craving a punchline that isn’t simply “canine needs to fuck all the pieces that strikes.”
In case your audience is center schoolers, “Mounted” could be pure catnip—er, kibble. I’m all for a raunchy animated comedy, particularly Sony Footage Animation’s fellow R-rated brethren “Sausage Social gathering,” however “Mounted” lacks each the stomach laughs and the emotional core to hold it.
The story follows Bull (Adam DeVine), launched within the least delicate approach doable: going to city on his sleeping nana’s leg. Bull’s in his prime, desperate to mount something with (or with out) a pulse. When he learns of his impending castration, he bolts, accompanied by his already mounted buddies: a boxer voiced by Idris Elba, a beagle voiced by Bobby Moynihan, and an lovely dachshund voiced by Fred Armisen.
Tartakovsky and co-writer Jon Vitti assemble a pointy comedic forged (Kathryn Hahn and Beck Bennett additionally pop in as a pair of purebreds) and the voice work brings as a lot credibility as the fabric permits. However the movie is satisfied {that a} regular stream of profanity, crude humor, and cute animals in compromising positions is sufficient to cross the end line. At solely about 80 minutes, it’s brisk, but nonetheless manages to really feel like an SNL sketch stretched far previous its expiration date.
We get it. Canines, particularly these in warmth, wish to bone. However the movie by no means pauses to offer us a motive to care about Bull’s journey. It tries to wedge in a message about relationships being extra than simply intercourse—that it’s what’s inside that counts—however undermines it with sequences that includes big, bouncing canine testicles performed for slapstick. The closest “Mounted” involves impressed comedy is a scene in a nightclub/brothel, however even that earns solely a gentle chuckle.
“Mounted” might have been a intelligent, heartfelt spin on an absurd premise. As an alternative, it’s a shaggy-dog story that errors relentless crudeness for comedy and chases its personal tail till it collapses.
FIXED streams on Netflix Wednesday, August thirteenth