happenstance (dog ends up in nuclear reactor thingamajiggy strike four?). Polly is now a pooch as well (strike oh, who cares anymore) and our supposed hero has a human owner (grrrrrrrr!
) to keep him in line. Voiced by Jason Lee (huh?) and costarring little person powerhouse Peter Dinklage as Barsinister (the only genius move in this entire gagfest), we end up with something looking like Superman with fleas, a generic action film dumbed down substantially to keep the bratlings at bay (oh, and did we mention that Riff Raff is now a Rottweiler, and apparently a rival for Polly s affections NOOOO!
!!) The numerous numbskull moves made by the people behind the production are nothing compared to who is helming this atrocity in the making.
Thanks to a script credited to three individuals newbies Craig A. Williams and Joe Piscatella, along with industry fixture Alan ( ) Rifkin but probably touched by a dozen or so illiterate cinematic scribblers, and the dim directorial flair of Frederik Du Chau, there is a wonderful aroma of predicated failure wafting off of this turkey. The trailer plays like every animal-oriented clich ever conceived (jokes about gas, pee, and butt sniffing are plentiful) and the blatant CGI used to capture the critters makes the movements appear stiffer than the original cartoon s dynamic.
Like the awful robotic baby in the equally abysmal Son of the Mask , the incredibly complex movements of your basic beagle seem to baffle the multiple motherboards of the F/X techs tools. Now, there is nothing wrong with creating your own canine superhero, giving him human qualities thanks to a freak experiment, and building an entire film out of his amiable adventures. Or simply stay with the notion of a parallel universe where animals easily coexist and speak perfect English.
Oh wait, didn t they already make that movie and call it Cats and Dogs ? And didn t it die at the box office? Granted, Disney isn t aiming this movie at fans of the original TV show.
In fact, they have obviously avoided anything that would remind viewers of their childhood chum. No, this is designed for the post-millennial age, an entity only betrothed to its own disposability, calculated to make a fast potential franchise buck before living out life in DVD stud. While the House of Mouse is downplaying future animation sequels, there s no such mandate on live action direct to video features.
That means that even if it bombs, our tick-ridden friend will be back in Underdog 2: Curse of the Choke Chain and Listen, no one is faulting Disney for trying. The business of show is a cutthroat world. Everyone is anxious to exploit product awareness, create commercial interest, and manufacture new revenue streams.
Digging into the past for present day projects is nothing new (just ask one Cecil B. DeMille, who more or less remade every silent movie he ever produced), but it s the reinvention trump card that has fans and film aficionados up in arms. See, a studio can t just take an old icon say Alvin and the Chipmunks and deal directly with what made the original so memorable.
No, they have to add ridiculous contemporary characteristics how about a splash of hip hop to mesh with the fad gadget mindset, and pray that the potential fallout and backlash doesn t keep parents from partaking of their cinematic babysitting services (by the way, the Chipmunks dig it s headed to theaters this December no kidding). There is clearly something more to happenstance (dog ends up in nuclear reactor thingamajiggy strike four?).
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