This movie about talking dogs from outer space is, among other things, a calibration of anti-climax. The most brilliant moment, in my humble opinion, is at the very beginning. The film opens up with a shot of a dogs flying through the air in slow motion. This opening scene, which gave us insight to the director's brilliant canine sensibilities, had me totally psyched for a great dog-flick. Before I explain how this movie failed, I should point out that I happen to be a huge dog fanatic. I have a massive, and borderline unhealthy love for dogs of every kind. This means that any shortcomings that a movie about talking dogs would normally have would, for me at least, be made up for in the sheer presence of dogs. Not the case. Despite adorable, hilarious dogs in almost every frame, I still couldn't wait for this movie to be over.
The plot is pretty simple: dog crashes spaceship on earth, gets adopted by young dog lover, tells the boy and local dogs that dogs were originally intended to run the world, tries to get these pets into shape before the 'greater Dane' shows up to check on world-domination progress. Of cause it ends with the dog 'falling in love' with the boy and deciding that being a pet isn't so bad after all. Simple, right? Very. As far as the plot goes, I really have no major problems other than it being terribly predictable at every corner (at times, I felt like I was watching a dog version of Toy Story). The plot is used to deliver a simple message, which is: dogs and humans need each other. They have a very special relationship. And I'm not going to lie, I cried. Technically speaking, the movie was very well shot. I don't know how they found such well-trained dogs, but most of the time I completely forgot that the dog in the screen does not in reality have any clue what a movie is. I felt like I was watching actual actors whose movements were all so graceful and precise. The problem arose with the usual suspects: the human actors and their characters. Lets start with Kevin Nealon and Molly Shannon as the parents of the main dog-loving character. I'd say there was really nothing WRONG with their performance, but I found it odd that they cast former SNL cast members to play roles that my very own parents could have nailed on the first take. Nealon and Shannon carry so much residual atmosphere with them, that the whole time I kept thinking that their performances were somehow meant to be humorous in ways that I wasn't picking up on. In truth they were just ordinary mom and dad. Once I got used to this idea, I was fine. The biggest problem was in another actor, who portrayed nothing more than the voice of the main dog. This actor was so unconvincing as a dog ambassador from space that whenever his dog had lines, all I could think about was how unimpressive of a human being the actor is. Of course I could be talking about none other than Mathew Broderick. It has occurred to me that Mathew Broderick couldn't be convincing if his role were to play an untalented actor. Please don't interrupt my anti-Broderick rant with thoughts of how much you loved Ferris Beuler's Day Off. I understand. We all loved that movie. And when Broderick was younger, fine, I'll admit it looked like he had potential. But as of right now the only potential he has involves greeting customers at Wallmart. The other major problem was the characters. With the exception of the dogs, I didn't care in the least about any of the characters. And I could identify fully with pretty much all of them, especially the main character who is a young dog lover with no friends and parents who think he's crazy. Yet despite the connection on paper, there's something so saccharine about the characters and their acting, that the character-to-audience relationship just doesn't seem real. When I had mentioned earlier that I cried, I should probably point out that I did not cry because I cared in the least about the characters. I cried mostly because it made me think of a few dogs I lost as a kid, and partially because I had just realized that I might be allergic to nougat. As I was leaving the screening, I heard a fellow critic say to someone, "It was better than a movie about dogs from space has any right being." This might have been true from a technical standpoint. But the fact that a dog-drenched movie couldn't get a dog lover like myself on its leash means that there was obviously too much missing for it to be a good movie.
The plot is pretty simple: dog crashes spaceship on earth, gets adopted by young dog lover, tells the boy and local dogs that dogs were originally intended to run the world, tries to get these pets into shape before the 'greater Dane' shows up to check on world-domination progress. Of cause it ends with the dog 'falling in love' with the boy and deciding that being a pet isn't so bad after all. Simple, right? Very. As far as the plot goes, I really have no major problems other than it being terribly predictable at every corner (at times, I felt like I was watching a dog version of Toy Story). The plot is used to deliver a simple message, which is: dogs and humans need each other. They have a very special relationship. And I'm not going to lie, I cried. Technically speaking, the movie was very well shot. I don't know how they found such well-trained dogs, but most of the time I completely forgot that the dog in the screen does not in reality have any clue what a movie is. I felt like I was watching actual actors whose movements were all so graceful and precise. The problem arose with the usual suspects: the human actors and their characters. Lets start with Kevin Nealon and Molly Shannon as the parents of the main dog-loving character. I'd say there was really nothing WRONG with their performance, but I found it odd that they cast former SNL cast members to play roles that my very own parents could have nailed on the first take. Nealon and Shannon carry so much residual atmosphere with them, that the whole time I kept thinking that their performances were somehow meant to be humorous in ways that I wasn't picking up on. In truth they were just ordinary mom and dad. Once I got used to this idea, I was fine. The biggest problem was in another actor, who portrayed nothing more than the voice of the main dog. This actor was so unconvincing as a dog ambassador from space that whenever his dog had lines, all I could think about was how unimpressive of a human being the actor is. Of course I could be talking about none other than Mathew Broderick. It has occurred to me that Mathew Broderick couldn't be convincing if his role were to play an untalented actor. Please don't interrupt my anti-Broderick rant with thoughts of how much you loved Ferris Beuler's Day Off. I understand. We all loved that movie. And when Broderick was younger, fine, I'll admit it looked like he had potential. But as of right now the only potential he has involves greeting customers at Wallmart. The other major problem was the characters. With the exception of the dogs, I didn't care in the least about any of the characters. And I could identify fully with pretty much all of them, especially the main character who is a young dog lover with no friends and parents who think he's crazy. Yet despite the connection on paper, there's something so saccharine about the characters and their acting, that the character-to-audience relationship just doesn't seem real. When I had mentioned earlier that I cried, I should probably point out that I did not cry because I cared in the least about the characters. I cried mostly because it made me think of a few dogs I lost as a kid, and partially because I had just realized that I might be allergic to nougat. As I was leaving the screening, I heard a fellow critic say to someone, "It was better than a movie about dogs from space has any right being." This might have been true from a technical standpoint. But the fact that a dog-drenched movie couldn't get a dog lover like myself on its leash means that there was obviously too much missing for it to be a good movie.