Hey folks, Harry here... Seems like that hottie with all the sweet things for you to suckle, Jr Mintz, well.... She's here to comment on the eternal struggle between CATS & DOGS... Seems she slinked her way into an early peek and from the sound of it... the movie sounds fun. I look forward to checking it out. No, really I do.
Hey Harry,
I got a call last night from my old pal Promo Girl who asked if I wanted to do a last-minute sub working the candy counter at the Westwood Village theatre this AM. Seems Warner Bros. was premiering CATS & DOGS and they were a few hands short to hand out popcorn and goody bags to the guests. With a golden opportunity to sneak a look at one of the most highly-hyped summer flicks in front of me, naturally I agreed. I arrived in Westwood bright ‘n early, launched my usual green togs for the black and white C&D tee shirt they made "the help" wear and spent an hour or so handing out treats to the kiddies and their (in many cases) even brattier Hollywood-type parents. Eh. Show folk. What can ya do? Anyhow, once the lights went down, I jumped ship behind the snack stand and zipped in to have a peek.
On the whole I hadn’t been too impressed with this summer’s kiddie fare. SHREK was okay, but for all it’s vaunted "deconstruction" of fairy tales, it was basically just another fairy tale – unlikely hero (pig-keeper, farm boy, enchanted frog, ogre, whatever) overcomes obstacles and wins the love of a princess. Well, who usually wins the Princess’s hand, duh? The CGI was nice, but the story and (cynical off-camera hype campaign) was paint-by-the-numbers all the way down to the happy wedding scene at the end and the obligatory Burger King tie-in. Ho-hum. So Katzenburg does Disney better than Disney currently does Disney. So what? It’s still Disney.
And speaking of the House of Mouse, I liked ATLANTIS even less than SHREK. Some nice artwork, some interesting ideas (though more interestingly handled in NADIA, the Japanese animated feature Disney swiped them from) but the story loses both steam and logic about halfway through.
Admittedly I wasn’t holding out much hope either for Warner Bros. family-friendly CATS & DOGS. Warners features track record had been none too good lately and every clip I had seen on TV showed the same semi-amusing gags over and over, normally not a good sign. Happily I was way off-base with my first impressions, for C&D is no dog. It’s not perfect – there are way too many loose ends and important secrets revealed and then left dangling at the film’s end to be satisfying if you’re actually paying attention to the plot. However, if you approach it as the live-action Looney Tune it clearly aspires to be, there’s a lot here to enjoy. Kudos to director Lawrence Guterman and his army of animators, puppeteers and animal trainers for keeping things light, interesting and most of all, FUNNY!
The premise, as no doubt everyone who reads this board knows, is that throughout history there has been a secret ongoing war being fought between cats and dogs for control of mankind, and therefore the world. The cats want to enslave people, while dogs want to be man’s best friend. Why the dogs don’t want to leash people (who they acknowledge as sometimes treating them badly) and run the show themselves is too obvious a question for the filmmakers and thus it is never addressed. It’s the given that cats are, and have always been sneaky and dogs have always loyal and that’s it. No, don’t think about the premise any more, THAT’S IT.
A megalomaniac cat named Mr. Tinkles has a scheme to steal a dog allergy cure being invented by Dr. Brody (Jeff Goldblum) and rework it into a formula that will make everyone on Earth allergic to dogs. Basically Tinkles’ story plays as a pretty direct lift of any episode of "Pinky & The Brain" and Brain, I’m sorry, Tinkles is even saddled with the prerequisite dimwitted sidekick named Pink-…er, Calico, who rambles on like a dolt and constantly fouls up his leader’s orders. Standing in Tinkles’ way is a determined puppy named Lou (voice by Tobey Maguire) and a group of highly trained canine secret agents. As with most innocent, eager-to-please heroes, Lou inherited the job more or less by accident and he’s torn between making good on his first big assignment and his growing devotion to his new young master, Dr. Brody’s son.
In classic Looney Tunes style, the cats make a number of attempts to infiltrate Brody’s lab, sending in Siamese cat ninjas and a very funny gravel-voiced kitten known only as "The Russian" to swipe the formula. When the Brodys are kidnapped, the stakes are raised and Lou can either betray the dog agents by handing over the allergy formula or let his human family perish at Tinkles’ paws.
There are a number of amusing gags in C&D, and as a very nice surprise, the funniest ones were not already leaked in the trailers. A scene in a dog’s version of the United Nations is a howl, particularly when the dog chairman resorts to an inspired way of getting the unruly canines attention, a gag any dog owner will instantly appreciate. Likewise the film saves one of its best sequences for the end, when the cats forge a surprise alliance with another animal species in their bid to bring mankind to its knees. As an added bonus, at one point the film slips in clips from Chuck Jones’ mean-spirited, but very funny Warner cartoon "Chow Hound". Not often shown because of its brutality (a mean dog constantly abuses the helpless cat he forces to bring him food) it’s clearly the cartoon of choice of the dogs in the movie, who all laugh at it with glee.
The screening this morning was filled with kids and every one of them seemed to love the picture. Quite a few were even crying at one point when one of the mutts seemingly perishes in the heat of battle. It’s a somewhat mawkish moment and milked for all its worth, but the kids bought every second of it. The ending had the tots cheering with delight and applauding, no doubt heralding the imminent arrival of CATS & DOGS II, C&D III, the obligatory TV cartoon series, comic books, action figures, etc., etc.
Bottom line, if you see C&D with kids and expect nothing more than a light-hearted, occasionally inspired goofy comedy, you’ll have fun. If you want something with more "grown up" appeal, there’s OLD YELLER, THREE LIVES OF TOMASINA, MY DOG SKIP or SOUNDER all available for rent at Blockbuster.
Junior Mintz
