The wind-up: "The Benchwarmers" arrives courtesy of Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production outfit, and bears all the usual hallmarks thereof: It's a low-budget comedy, stars a crew of Sandler's compatriots from SNL and boasts a plot straight out of a family film factory "goosed up" with PG-13 gay, racial and scatology humor. You know what you're getting into if you go see it, though this time it's not actually all that bad.
And the pitch: Landscaper Gus (Rob Schneider) is the nominal leader of a three perpetual-loser buddies, also including possibly-retarded paperboy Clark (Jon Heder, aka Napolean Dynamite) and geeky/sleazy video clerk Richie (David Spade.) When the trio observe members of the local little league team roughing some of the local "nerds," they challenge the bullies to a scrimmage game and end up winning thanks to Gus' previously-undisclosed athletic expertise. This leads to more challenges and more wins, news of which reaches the ears of nerd-turned-BILLIONAIRE-NERD Mel (Jon Lovitz) who approaches the three with a proposal: That they challenge the entire leagues' worth of teams, whupping their asses in the name of all athletically-challenged "benchwarmer" youngsters with an ultra-modern baseball stadium as the winner's prize.
It's a cute premise, further flavored by a keen (if broad) grasp on the bully/bullied dynamic and an obvious affection for the "nerds" in question: The Benchwarmer's exploits are covered on websites, and they develop an army of followers drawing inspiration from their "taking on" of the jock-ocracy. Little touches, like Mel's collection of scifi-memorabilia and the pleasantly strong results of casting the oft-grating Schneider as the straight-man, lift the film considerably. And it plays things interestingly subtle (for the most part) in regards to a plot-mystery involving Gus' character: After all, it's a little strange that a guy who pals around with the geek set and is so attuned to the suffering of school-aged misfits is so great at sports himself, not to mention skilled in the arts of bully-fu, no? Hm...
Nice touches aside, it can't exactly overcome the general problems of Happy Madison's output: The adult jokes don't really fit with the overall story, which is more like something out of Disney in the early-70s, and as far as structure goes, well... it doesn't really have much of one. It's heart is in the right place, and it's probably Schneider's best role, but it doesn't add up to much.
FINAL RATING: 5/10
Sunday, 9 April 2006
Monday, 3 April 2006
REVIEW: Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
Most of the time, you can't see Manny's mouth.
Manny, voiced by Ray Romano, is more-or-less the lead character of both "Ice Age" films so far. Being that he is a Wooly Mammoth, and thusly a massive and powerful creature covered in bushy hair with his offensive weapons (tusks) perpetually jutting out in front of him, it makes sense that he come off significantly on the "gruffer" side compared to most of his cuddlier, zanier brethren in the fellowship or cartoon animals.
But there's more to it than that. The original film cast Manny with one of the darker personas in cinema-for-the-young: Brooding and bordering on suicidal (as the first film opens, he's walking AGAINST the migration away from the certain doom of the advancing ice) after his wife and children were killed by human hunters. And there's Romano's terse, to-the-point delivery and the storyline which made him both the brains AND most of the muscle (being, essentially, an eleven foot-tall walking tank with giant spears sticking out of his face) of his comic trio... and, yes, thanks to the trunk-obscured shape of a Mammoth's face you usually can't see his mouth; resulting in a default expression resembling nothing so much as Clint Eastwood's grim ambiguity in the "Dollars" cycle.
So, while the "Ice Age" franchise so far doesn't quite have Pixar's polish or "Shrek's" crossover grace, it CAN boast digital animation's mas macho hero, which is certainly something.
It can also boast a certain unique design and oddball energy all it's own, started off in the first film by Chris Wedge and continued here by co-director Carlos Saldhana. (Wedge remains as the voice of "Scrat".) Set among anthropomorphized Megafauna (large-scale prehistoric mammals) during the titular period of global cooling, the overriding contrast of bulky quadropeds moving amidst whited-out snowscapes or sparse forestland ensures that it doesn't look too much like anything else out there.
Plotwise, the franchise has thus far distinguished itself by grounding it's plots in the tradition of mission-oriented "journey" stories with the added flavor of "guy movie" male-bonding: When last we left, Manny had formed a makeshift herd with wacky sloth Sid (John Leguizamo) and stealthy sabre-toothed tiger Diego (Dennis Leary) to help shepherd an orphaned human baby back to it's tribe, complicated by Diego's shifting loyalty to his human-hunting tiger brothers.. though, naturally, that was worked out. Having learned to work together (and to deliver a timely message about alternative families without being preachy) the trio here re-join us, now living comfortably in a hospitable valley among a grab-bag of other species...
...except that "hospitable" part doesn't last long. As our main story begins, the animals discover that the "doomsday" predictions of the local nuts are correct: The Ice Age is ending, and a rising ocean is three days away from spilling back into the valley and drowning them all. And so we've got our new mission: Get to the other side of the valley, where the salvation of a "boat" supposedly awaits, and in the interim solve Diego's newly-revealed fear of water and Manny's growing concern that he may be the last of his species... a concern that is relaxed, only to reveal new issues, by the discovery of female mammoth Ellie (Queen Latifah) who has, let's say, "identity issues."
It's not as emotionally compelling a setup as the prior film, but that's not entirely unexpected. More problematic is the lack, this time around, of a compelling villian. Oh, "the elements" remain the primary antagonist (ice in the first film, fire and water this time) but Goran Visjnic's evil tiger from #1 is sorely missed. In his place are a vulture flock acting as a ticking-clock to armageddon, and a pair of voiceless aquatic dinosaurs unthawed by the melting ice and released into the already unsafe waters. This lack of a central "big bad" mostly harms the film in terms of narrative cohesion: Without one, the story becomes a series of vignettes, though the leviathan duo serve their purpose in providing Manny with a pair of action-hero setpeices.
Among the new cast members, Queen Latifah has the most fun, finally once again allowed to play an actual character and not just Queen Latifah. And, as with the first film, the main story is occasionally interupted for the adventures of squirrel-like Scrat, still locked in his Sisyphean pursuit of the perfect acorn.
As sequels go, it's more "Temple of Doom" than "Empire Strikes Back," but it's engaging and clever and the re-assembled cast is still lots of fun. I'll say reccomended.
FINAL RATING: 7/10
Manny, voiced by Ray Romano, is more-or-less the lead character of both "Ice Age" films so far. Being that he is a Wooly Mammoth, and thusly a massive and powerful creature covered in bushy hair with his offensive weapons (tusks) perpetually jutting out in front of him, it makes sense that he come off significantly on the "gruffer" side compared to most of his cuddlier, zanier brethren in the fellowship or cartoon animals.
But there's more to it than that. The original film cast Manny with one of the darker personas in cinema-for-the-young: Brooding and bordering on suicidal (as the first film opens, he's walking AGAINST the migration away from the certain doom of the advancing ice) after his wife and children were killed by human hunters. And there's Romano's terse, to-the-point delivery and the storyline which made him both the brains AND most of the muscle (being, essentially, an eleven foot-tall walking tank with giant spears sticking out of his face) of his comic trio... and, yes, thanks to the trunk-obscured shape of a Mammoth's face you usually can't see his mouth; resulting in a default expression resembling nothing so much as Clint Eastwood's grim ambiguity in the "Dollars" cycle.
So, while the "Ice Age" franchise so far doesn't quite have Pixar's polish or "Shrek's" crossover grace, it CAN boast digital animation's mas macho hero, which is certainly something.
It can also boast a certain unique design and oddball energy all it's own, started off in the first film by Chris Wedge and continued here by co-director Carlos Saldhana. (Wedge remains as the voice of "Scrat".) Set among anthropomorphized Megafauna (large-scale prehistoric mammals) during the titular period of global cooling, the overriding contrast of bulky quadropeds moving amidst whited-out snowscapes or sparse forestland ensures that it doesn't look too much like anything else out there.
Plotwise, the franchise has thus far distinguished itself by grounding it's plots in the tradition of mission-oriented "journey" stories with the added flavor of "guy movie" male-bonding: When last we left, Manny had formed a makeshift herd with wacky sloth Sid (John Leguizamo) and stealthy sabre-toothed tiger Diego (Dennis Leary) to help shepherd an orphaned human baby back to it's tribe, complicated by Diego's shifting loyalty to his human-hunting tiger brothers.. though, naturally, that was worked out. Having learned to work together (and to deliver a timely message about alternative families without being preachy) the trio here re-join us, now living comfortably in a hospitable valley among a grab-bag of other species...
...except that "hospitable" part doesn't last long. As our main story begins, the animals discover that the "doomsday" predictions of the local nuts are correct: The Ice Age is ending, and a rising ocean is three days away from spilling back into the valley and drowning them all. And so we've got our new mission: Get to the other side of the valley, where the salvation of a "boat" supposedly awaits, and in the interim solve Diego's newly-revealed fear of water and Manny's growing concern that he may be the last of his species... a concern that is relaxed, only to reveal new issues, by the discovery of female mammoth Ellie (Queen Latifah) who has, let's say, "identity issues."
It's not as emotionally compelling a setup as the prior film, but that's not entirely unexpected. More problematic is the lack, this time around, of a compelling villian. Oh, "the elements" remain the primary antagonist (ice in the first film, fire and water this time) but Goran Visjnic's evil tiger from #1 is sorely missed. In his place are a vulture flock acting as a ticking-clock to armageddon, and a pair of voiceless aquatic dinosaurs unthawed by the melting ice and released into the already unsafe waters. This lack of a central "big bad" mostly harms the film in terms of narrative cohesion: Without one, the story becomes a series of vignettes, though the leviathan duo serve their purpose in providing Manny with a pair of action-hero setpeices.
Among the new cast members, Queen Latifah has the most fun, finally once again allowed to play an actual character and not just Queen Latifah. And, as with the first film, the main story is occasionally interupted for the adventures of squirrel-like Scrat, still locked in his Sisyphean pursuit of the perfect acorn.
As sequels go, it's more "Temple of Doom" than "Empire Strikes Back," but it's engaging and clever and the re-assembled cast is still lots of fun. I'll say reccomended.
FINAL RATING: 7/10
Saturday, 1 April 2006
REVIEW: Basic Instinct 2
A little bit of Film History 101 for those for whom cinema-consciousness doesn't extend back to 1992: The original "Basic Instinct" was the nominal high-point in a pair then-booming Hollywood trends: The "erotic thriller" (read: murder mystery with lots of nudity) and "neo-noir" (1940s-style crime/detective dramas transplanted into modern settings.) When it went into production, the "big deal" was that screenwriter Joe Esterhaz had been paid a then-astonishing $3 Million for his work, helping touch off the L.A. screenwriting "spec boom." When it was being marketed, the "big deal" was that seemingly every major starlet had turned down the aggressively-sexual lead role, instead seeing it go to Sharon Stone, at the time a B-lister. When it actually came out, the "big deal" was that gay-rights activists were protesting the film due to the "plot twist" that had Stone's character as a bisexual (this make shock those of you under the age of 16, but circa-1992 "girl-on-girl action" WASN'T something you were garaunteed to see in every sexually-explicit movie; and this is the flick that helped fix that grave injustice.) Oh! Um... it was ALSO kind of a "big deal" that you could see Sharon Stone's bare pussy when she uncrossed her legs in the film's most famous scene.
Finally, when the film had come and gone as a boxoffice-igniting smash-hit, the "big deal" was that Stone aggressively turned on it, declaring that the starmaking role had "typecast" her as a seductress. Eventually, she went so far as to claim that director Paul Verhoeven had "tricked her" into the now-legendary crotch-flashing scene. She placed herself in the public role of the victimized actress, ignored for her talent and exploited for her body by Hollywood... unlucky for her, America treated this role the same way it treated every single role she had had other than Basic Instinct: Namely, it didn't give a damn.
Now, here we are, FIFTEEN YEARS LATER, and the "big deal" is... no longer Sharon Stone. So, now, likely hoping to inject some life into a career that has, sadly, gone pretty ice cold, she's "made up" with the "Instinct" franchise and stepped back into the role of seductress/murderess Catherine Tramell... and she's hit the talk-show circuit hard on it's behalf, touting the positives of the role she not-that-long-ago fled at the mention of. Turns out, yesterday's "exploitation" is today's "celebration of the sex-appeal of the older woman." Who knew?
Hate to break it to you, Mrs. Stone, but if "Basic Instinct 2" works as a celebration of anything, it's as a celebration of how lucky we were that "Basic Instinct 1" turned out as good as it did. This sequel jettison's everyone and everything from the original save for Stone and her nudity, and the result serves as an ultimate rebuttal against the argument that said original rose and fell by said nudity alone: She's doing the same routine, and she's just as naked, but without Paul Verhoeven's considerable directorial flourish or Esterhas' functionally-lurid imagination, and only a sampling of Jerry Goldsmith's excellent score, this sequel is even more useless, empty and uninspired as one might've guessed. The characters are blanks and the "mystery" is uninteresting; it's just an expensive stage from which a one-time sex symbol pleads for our attention.
There's really nothing to see here. The much-touted "explicit" scenes are almost-nonexistant, no doubt waiting to see light on DVD. The new London setting provides little excitement, save the fun of seeing reliable Brit talents like David Thewlis and Charlotte Rampling try very earnestly to pretend there's a worthy film in here, somewhere. Not so lucky is Brit TV mainstay David Morrissey, stuck in the thankless role of a psychiatrist who diagnoses Tramell as a "risk addict," only to find her slinking her way into his already-messy personal and professional life.
As for Sharon Stone... look, it'd be both easy and churlish to point out that a film that primarily exists as a showcase for a "still sexy past 40" female physique, but... the phrase "ridden hard and put away wet" leapt to mind a few times, which would sound flattering given the genre until one remembers that phrase refers to improperly-groomed racehorses. Stone is, no question, a lovely woman, but that's a bit of a leap from the "sex goddess" the film asks us to accept her as. What's more, her overall acting ability (never really her key selling point to begin with) hasn't improved... in fact, she seems to have forgotten even how to act sexy. Her Tramell still has a perky-pair and a potty-mouth, but the sexy-swagger has been supplanted by a kind of phony desperation that comes off as, well... skanky. And that's a big problem when the entire film hinges on Morrissey's character being driven (literally) mad with desire.
It's a foregone conclusion that you can find infinitely more explicit "erotic thrillers" than "Basic Instinct 2" lining the DVD shelves or cropping up on Cable. But it's surprising, and a little alarming, that most of them will also be better overall films as well.
FINAL RATING: 3/10
Sunday, 26 March 2006
REVIEW: Inside Man
With this film, Spike Lee finally steps outside himself and the result is arguably the first of his efforts since "Malcom X" not to buckle under the added weight of it's maker's obsession with identity politics. This is a movie about a clever bank robber (Clive Owen) executing a self-declared "perfect" heist, the tough-but-calm hostage negotiator (Denzel Washington) on the other end... and that's it.
Well, alright, not quite. This is still, after all, Spike Lee; and the usual creeping irritants of his ouvre still poke their heads out from time to time: New York is still fetishized, a lead actor still glides on a dolly-rig, a jarring pullback-from-closeup still reveals characters to be standing in front of a wall plastered with messagery and Jewish-American characters are still played for obvious caricatures; alongside a really moronic aside for a commentary on violence (and, of course, racism) in video games and Jodie Foster as an amoral ice-queen "fixer" who seems to have the entirety of NYC under her sway and is name, yes... Miss White. Cute.
But those little half-slivers of annoyance aside, overall Mr. Lee has put his stature as poster-boy for self-important message-mongering aside and let his skill as a filmmaker take the spotlight. The result: A cracking-good thriller.
The setup you know going in, anything else you shouldn't know and won't here from me. Suffice it to say that writer Russel Gerwitz has written a solid mini-marvel of a heist movie with a great collection of characters and a corker third act, and Spike Lee has directed the hell out of it. What you've heard is true: Spike Lee has FINALLY made good on his early promise and graduated from political-essayist to filmmaker.
And it's about damn time. Well done, and reccomended.
FINAL RATING: 9/10
Well, alright, not quite. This is still, after all, Spike Lee; and the usual creeping irritants of his ouvre still poke their heads out from time to time: New York is still fetishized, a lead actor still glides on a dolly-rig, a jarring pullback-from-closeup still reveals characters to be standing in front of a wall plastered with messagery and Jewish-American characters are still played for obvious caricatures; alongside a really moronic aside for a commentary on violence (and, of course, racism) in video games and Jodie Foster as an amoral ice-queen "fixer" who seems to have the entirety of NYC under her sway and is name, yes... Miss White. Cute.
But those little half-slivers of annoyance aside, overall Mr. Lee has put his stature as poster-boy for self-important message-mongering aside and let his skill as a filmmaker take the spotlight. The result: A cracking-good thriller.
The setup you know going in, anything else you shouldn't know and won't here from me. Suffice it to say that writer Russel Gerwitz has written a solid mini-marvel of a heist movie with a great collection of characters and a corker third act, and Spike Lee has directed the hell out of it. What you've heard is true: Spike Lee has FINALLY made good on his early promise and graduated from political-essayist to filmmaker.
And it's about damn time. Well done, and reccomended.
FINAL RATING: 9/10
Sideways 2... or not
ANYTHING can have a sequel if you just try hard enough :)
And in case the below video STILL doesn't play, here's the direct iFilm link:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2713959
And in case the below video STILL doesn't play, here's the direct iFilm link:
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2713959
Friday, 24 March 2006
"Stay Alive" out today...
In honor of cheezy-looking haunted-video game movie "Stay Alive" opening today I here present it's trailer... slightly improved-upon :)
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2709242
Enjoy!
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2709242
Enjoy!
Wednesday, 22 March 2006
REVIEW: The Shaggy Dog (2006)
In historical terms, Walt Disney's original 1959 "Shaggy Dog" holds a place of some significance as the first live action family hit to come out of the House of Mouse and, per the Disney model, establishing the template more-or-less adhered to for the majority that were to follow: A safe, family-friendly comedy, heavy on visual gags and slapstick but located tonally within the same realm as most television sitcoms at the time, and usually "tweaked" by the addition of some fantastical element, either magical or science-fictional in nature.
The story revolved around a magic ring, somehow tied to the Borgias of old Italy, that was cursed so as to afflict any who donned it with periodic transformations into a sheep dog. The "victim" in that case was a young man, the rest of the plot had him putting his "powers" to use thwarting Soviet spies, and the directing chores fell to Charles Barton, a reliable journeyman director who had previous experience in comedies of the supernatural as helmer of "Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein," the first and perhaps greatest of all monster/comedies.
The legion of Disney live-action comedies that followed essentially replayed the same concept with new characters, settings and fantasy-twists, and an official sequel arrived MUCH later in the form of "The Shaggy D.A." and another even later for television. Now, in 2006, we have and "official" remake to reboot the franchise once again, with Tim Allen now in the lead as a man (a D.A., no less!) who finds himself turning into the titular pudgy sheep dog.
Overall, the new film is about as functional and likable as the original, which is to say that it is inoffensive, charming and frequently hillarious, providing that you regard (as I do) the spectacle of Tim Allen behaving like a dog (or giving voice to a dog, depending on the scene) as funny in and of itself. Beyond that, the film is more interesting as a case study in how much the world, and thus, the movies we use to escape from/comment on it, has changed.
Just for starters, there's the hero: In the original, teenaged Tommy Kirk had the title role, (all told, the film resembles nothing so much as a family-skewing cousin to the then-popular "I Was A Teenaged Werewolf",) and the magi-comical hijinks were suggestive of typical teen confusion (title character is freaked out by sudden physical changes, prinicipally involving hair? Hm? Anyone?) At the time, that was the basic dynamic of family comedy: Teens were funny because audiences presumed a universal awkwardness and tendency to foul up humorously as they navigated the transition from child to adult.
That was then, this is now. And NOW, we all know, teenage-hood is worshipped in as the only clear-thinking time in life, and the automatic slapstick heroes of the family comedy are fathers: Dad, the reliable goofball who can always be counted on to have lessons to learn and hangups to be spun into comedy gold. It goes without saying that Family Comedy Dad is a workaholic who's lost touch with his family, especially the kids, and thus requires the aid of mystical intervention to help. To that end, Tim Allen leads as an assistant D.A. preoccupied with his "starmaking" prosecution of a teacher/animal-rights activist accused of sabotaging the lab of a giant pharmacuetical corporation where, he claims, unethical animal experimentation is taking place.
Saying otherwise is the company's slimy chief scientist (Robert Downey Jr. in an underhyped but inspired comedy turn,) but you can be forgiven for guessing that he's lying. You probably ALSO didn't have to guess that the 1959 films' Russian Spy baddies are here replaced by the New Millenium villian's of choice: an unscrupulous mega-corporation. (I think we can safely assume that not even a Disney scriptwriter could think of a plausible reason for Al Qaeda to be involved with magical sheep dogs.) Sure enough, the big business bullies are holding captive and experimenting on a mysterious dog.
Why? Seems this time around the sheep dog is a sacred animal from a Buddhist monastery (where else?) who's DNA may hold the key to the fountain of youth. How? We're told that a genetic mutation has inverted the dog-years/human-years equation, allowing "Shaggy" to age seven times slower than a human being. Folks, I want to shake the hand of the fake-science black belt who thought that up. In any case, in order to harvest youth-serum the baddies have "viralized" the furry one's blood, meaning that when he bites Tim Allen about ten minutes in the plot-proper breaks out: Suddenly the no-nonsense work-addict has heightened-sense, embarassing canine personality ticks and the bad luck to transform into a dead-ringer for Shaggy at inoportune times. Will this help him reconnect with his family? Realize he's defending the wrong side? Help save the day and thwart the scientists? Yeah, I wonder...
But when it works, it works. The slapstick is funny enough, Allen remains a natural talent for such fare, and the animal gags are uniformly amusing. And the film gets just the right amount of mileage out of it's built-in "awww"-factor: Allen, transformed into a dog, finds himself privy to his family's various unspoken (to humans) problems with life and himself in particular. His wife feels she's losing him to work, teenaged daughter wants acknowledgement for all the hard work she puts into her interests, and young son is suffering through football to impress dad but really dreams of landing the lead in the school production of "Grease." There's something to be said for a movie that can evoke genuine emotion from the image of a sheep dog standing at the window of a ritzy restaurant, carrying an anniversary boquet in it's teeth. All together now: Awwww...
FINAL RATING: 7/10
The story revolved around a magic ring, somehow tied to the Borgias of old Italy, that was cursed so as to afflict any who donned it with periodic transformations into a sheep dog. The "victim" in that case was a young man, the rest of the plot had him putting his "powers" to use thwarting Soviet spies, and the directing chores fell to Charles Barton, a reliable journeyman director who had previous experience in comedies of the supernatural as helmer of "Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein," the first and perhaps greatest of all monster/comedies.
The legion of Disney live-action comedies that followed essentially replayed the same concept with new characters, settings and fantasy-twists, and an official sequel arrived MUCH later in the form of "The Shaggy D.A." and another even later for television. Now, in 2006, we have and "official" remake to reboot the franchise once again, with Tim Allen now in the lead as a man (a D.A., no less!) who finds himself turning into the titular pudgy sheep dog.
Overall, the new film is about as functional and likable as the original, which is to say that it is inoffensive, charming and frequently hillarious, providing that you regard (as I do) the spectacle of Tim Allen behaving like a dog (or giving voice to a dog, depending on the scene) as funny in and of itself. Beyond that, the film is more interesting as a case study in how much the world, and thus, the movies we use to escape from/comment on it, has changed.
Just for starters, there's the hero: In the original, teenaged Tommy Kirk had the title role, (all told, the film resembles nothing so much as a family-skewing cousin to the then-popular "I Was A Teenaged Werewolf",) and the magi-comical hijinks were suggestive of typical teen confusion (title character is freaked out by sudden physical changes, prinicipally involving hair? Hm? Anyone?) At the time, that was the basic dynamic of family comedy: Teens were funny because audiences presumed a universal awkwardness and tendency to foul up humorously as they navigated the transition from child to adult.
That was then, this is now. And NOW, we all know, teenage-hood is worshipped in as the only clear-thinking time in life, and the automatic slapstick heroes of the family comedy are fathers: Dad, the reliable goofball who can always be counted on to have lessons to learn and hangups to be spun into comedy gold. It goes without saying that Family Comedy Dad is a workaholic who's lost touch with his family, especially the kids, and thus requires the aid of mystical intervention to help. To that end, Tim Allen leads as an assistant D.A. preoccupied with his "starmaking" prosecution of a teacher/animal-rights activist accused of sabotaging the lab of a giant pharmacuetical corporation where, he claims, unethical animal experimentation is taking place.
Saying otherwise is the company's slimy chief scientist (Robert Downey Jr. in an underhyped but inspired comedy turn,) but you can be forgiven for guessing that he's lying. You probably ALSO didn't have to guess that the 1959 films' Russian Spy baddies are here replaced by the New Millenium villian's of choice: an unscrupulous mega-corporation. (I think we can safely assume that not even a Disney scriptwriter could think of a plausible reason for Al Qaeda to be involved with magical sheep dogs.) Sure enough, the big business bullies are holding captive and experimenting on a mysterious dog.
Why? Seems this time around the sheep dog is a sacred animal from a Buddhist monastery (where else?) who's DNA may hold the key to the fountain of youth. How? We're told that a genetic mutation has inverted the dog-years/human-years equation, allowing "Shaggy" to age seven times slower than a human being. Folks, I want to shake the hand of the fake-science black belt who thought that up. In any case, in order to harvest youth-serum the baddies have "viralized" the furry one's blood, meaning that when he bites Tim Allen about ten minutes in the plot-proper breaks out: Suddenly the no-nonsense work-addict has heightened-sense, embarassing canine personality ticks and the bad luck to transform into a dead-ringer for Shaggy at inoportune times. Will this help him reconnect with his family? Realize he's defending the wrong side? Help save the day and thwart the scientists? Yeah, I wonder...
But when it works, it works. The slapstick is funny enough, Allen remains a natural talent for such fare, and the animal gags are uniformly amusing. And the film gets just the right amount of mileage out of it's built-in "awww"-factor: Allen, transformed into a dog, finds himself privy to his family's various unspoken (to humans) problems with life and himself in particular. His wife feels she's losing him to work, teenaged daughter wants acknowledgement for all the hard work she puts into her interests, and young son is suffering through football to impress dad but really dreams of landing the lead in the school production of "Grease." There's something to be said for a movie that can evoke genuine emotion from the image of a sheep dog standing at the window of a ritzy restaurant, carrying an anniversary boquet in it's teeth. All together now: Awwww...
FINAL RATING: 7/10
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