Top dog or throw me a frickin’ bone?

I have seen this movie twice now. Twice in one day.

I say twice, but the first time was the first half hour before my three-year-old decided the film was too loud and wanted to go home.

I went back this afternoon to rewatch…and I wish I hadn’t bothered!

Basic story : A panda has been kidnapped and is going to be sold whilst a Dog Show (think Crufts) is going on in Las Vegas.

FBI agent Will Arnett and New York police dog Max (voiced by Lucacris) are teamed up. Oh and Max talks, but only to other animals.

Yeah, the story is VERY basic.

Also, so is any enjoyment.

Now, a lot has been mentioned in the press this last week about the “ball-fondling” scene and how it’s highly sexualized and how it had to be removed from the film in the states.

The problem is, that’s not the problem with the film…the problem is that it’s just not a good film.

It’s wallowing very low on the laugh scale. In fact, the only laughs were raised from mild slapstick in a couple of places, and some silly references to other films, even if they are misplaced completely. For example, Max calls Frank (Arnett) “Hooch”, then gets corrected by another dog that Turner was the Human, Hooch was the dog. Then another segment, a bad guy references “Good Cop/Bad Cop” from the Lego Movie, which Will Arnett reacts to with his Lego voice saying “What do you know about that?” and I laughed….before realising that Arnett doesn’t even voice that character in the Lego films!

And lets not talk about some of the really bad CG in the film. The talking part of the dogs is absolutely fine, but when a dog is forward rolling over cars, or acting like a mad dog in one part, it just really takes you away from it all.

Kids arent going to particularly love this, adults are likely to hate it.

Give it a week and it’ll be out of cinema and on it’s way to DVD

3/10