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DIRECTED BY: Toby Jones (II)

FEATURING: AJ Thompson, Crystal Cossette Knight

PLOT: Mild-mannered AJ’s life is thrown into disorder when Fargo’s mayor changes his beloved dog park into a dog-free “blog park,” so he decides to run for mayor himself.

COMMENTS: Comedy is subjective. Surreal comedy is even more subjective. AJ Goes to the Dog Park bills itself as “a surreal and gag-driven comedy.” I suppose the jokes are “surreal,” if you consider The Naked Gun “surreal.”

OK, so I guess the part where AJ’s dogs randomly turn into stuffed animals for some scenes is mildly surreal. But mostly, the gags are like the one where AJ and his future elbow-wrestling coach stand in the library perusing an old dusty tome together; when they leave, it is revealed that the book is not being held by the coach but by a pair of disembodied hands supplied by an extra crouching out of frame. This visual pun is unexpected, sure, but like 90% of AJ‘s jokes, it’s straight out of the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker playbook.

Not that that’s a bad thing. The jokes mostly didn’t land for me, but when you fire off 2 or 3 gags a minute, it’s inevitable that a few are going to get through. And this Fargo, North Dakota-based project, while cheaply done—it looks like an extended YouTube sketch, with uniformly amateur actors and self-consciously bad CGI/practical effects—is entirely earnest and refreshingly unafraid to fail. (AJ also takes a soupçon of spiritual inspiration from fellow Midwestern comedy indie Hundreds of Beavers, although it’s nowhere near as relentlessly original, witty, or—yes—as surreal as that cult hit.) AJ himself is a pleasantly bland slacker with no ill-will in his soul who just wants to walk his lapdogs and follow his daily routine, and it’s impossible to root against him. The plot, at least the first section, is brisk and easy to follow, with AJ tasked with completing a sequential set of challenges to wrest the Fargo mayoralty away from its arrogant, dog-unfriendly current occupant, helped along by the aforementioned elbow coach, a freshwater pirate, and a pair of turncoat civil servants. With regular surprises thrown into the mix, this makes for an easy and pleasant watch through the first 50 minutes or so. After (mild spoiler) AJ achieves his goal, however, the movie sort of continues on with far less direction, indulging a big flash forward as it segues into a sort of wistful reverie about losing track of its own plot that doesn’t entirely jibe with the movie’s first part—then ending with an apocalyptic finale with helicopter gunships fighting a D&D demon and his army of haunted skeletons that really doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie, but will at least wake you up. Well, maybe that last part does hit the “surreal” note they were bragging about…

Director Toby Jones must not be confused with the top-rank actor of the same name. This Toby Jones is a writer best known for his work on the Cartoon Network’s “The Regular Show.” This is actually the third (and most ambitious) “AJ” movie: the Jones/Thompson pair had made two shorter films (one was animated) starring the AJ character, and apparently have since they were teenagers in Fargo. Dog Park debuted as a “secret screening” mystery movie in some markets, where audiences felt ambushed by a way-off-center low-budget offering that many felt didn’t constitute a “real movie.” That unfortunate marketing ploy resulted in a barrage of angry 1-star IMDb ratings. AJ is probably not a movie meant for the big screen, but if you go into it knowing what to expect, there shouldn’t be anything here to offend your cinematic sensibilities. It’s juvenile, but not crude, like a live-action Bugs Bunny cartoon; something your inner 10-year old might enjoy. “Modest-but-zany” is the keyword here.

AJ Goes to the Dog Park can be streamed on multiple services (some free); there is also a Blu-ray with director’s commentary and other extras,

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Cartoon Network veteran Toby Jones brings his animation sensibilities to live-action with this aggressively weird comedy that feels like a feature-length sketch stretched beyond its natural limits.”–Jim Laczowski, Director’s Club (contemporaneous)