Putting laughs on a leash

Film has too many plot lines and the premise is too simple to connect with audience

It doesn’t matter if you’re a wounded talk show host like Elizabeth (Nina Dobrev), a man-child musician like Dax (Adam Pally) or an adolescent like pizza delivery boy Tyler (Finn Wolfhard) — to reach your full potential, what you need is a dog.

That’s the premise of Dog Days. And that’s pretty much it. As director Ken Marino says in a promotional clip for the film, he’s not aiming for a grand “take away” — this is family entertainment, people.

There are some laughs. The lead actors here have all been capably funny in previous work.

Tig Notaro delivers in her supporting role as an exorbitantly expensive dog (and human) therapist.

And while there are odd gaps (do LGBT Angelenos not love dogs as much as all the heteros in this movie?) the cast is commendably diverse and the plot lines nicely colour-blind.

But a film with this many plot lines can’t give any one of them much leash — and the actors are similarly limited. The female characters seem to have only two personality types; too sweet or too needy.

Marino is adept at biting satire of all things Hollywood, both in front of the camera (In a World ...) and behind it (Burning Love). But this ensemble comedy is more of a tail wag at the foibles of its protagonists.

The dogs do their job, mind you. Not only do they facilitate the necessary meet-cutes, they get their humans walking, outside — in Los Angeles.

— PHOTOS: LD ENTERTAINMENT Jon Bass, left, and Vanessa Hudgens are two of the many actors in Dog Days, a film that says a canine is the cure for whatever ails you — and that’s about all the wisdom it has to dispense.

Adam Pally plays a man-child musician in one of the many plot lines of Dog Days, a movie with a few laughs.