136
COLUMNEACH ISSUE OUR INTREPID WRITER
FOLLOWS NETFLIXâS COMPUTER-
CALIBRATED RECOMMENDATIONS
GOING WHEREVER THE TRAIL LEADS
Talking dogs
ADVENTURES
IN STREAMING
EEP INSIDE THE
Netfl ix video shack lies
a shelf of unspeakable
terror. To be more specifi c:
a shelf of speakable
terriers. Thanks to the
magic of CG muzzles the
once-novel talking-dog movie has boomed into a
bizarre Digby-sized cottage industry â and Netfl ix is
littered with them. By the end of this marathon I feel like
Dr. Donâtlittle: if you could talk to the animals youâd probably
tell them to shut up. Still we kick off with a genuine classic.
Homeward Bound Disneyâs remake of The Incredible
Journey sends two abandoned dogs and a cat through the
wilderness in search of their owners. No CGI. No fancy
lip-synching. Instead we get a masterclass in character craft
combining vivid voice-work (Michael J. Fox is just perfect as
the reckless American bulldog) with pedigree writing from
Caroline âEdward Scissorhandsâ Thompson and Linda âLion
King â Woolverton. Free of the default âbe yourself â message
this develops into something far deeper â a gutting
near-primal expression of the bond between man
and pet. If the climax doesnât have you blubbing
yourself into a dehydration risk youâre
a replicant and should be unplugged.
You can almost hear the fi ve-word pitch
for Beverly Hills Chihuahua : âParis
Hilton... but a dog!â And that really is it:
a one-joke title stretched like a rubber
dachshund for 90 diffi cult minutes. Drew
Barrymoreâs Chihuahua gets lost in Mexico â
cue culture-clash comedy as she learns to slum it
with the mutts. If dogs are manâs best friend Raja
Gosnell is an audienceâs worst enemy. All his fi lms be it Scooby-
Doo or The Smurfs deploy CGI as eye-candy camoufl age for
fi rst-draft material. If Homeward Bound has an emotional
opposite this is it: artifi cial insincere and about as
touching as tinnitus. In fact it seems less aimed at
kids more the kind of mumzillas who decorate their
kidsâ disposable nappies with Swarovski crystals.
The Shaggy Dog got a rough (ruff ?) ride on
release in 2006 but Iâd argue itâs misunderstood:
itâs a werewolf movie for toddlers. Instead of
a dog pretending to be a human this has a human
pretending to be a dog â namely Tim Allen whose
pooch-hating lawyer gets bitten by a mystical Tibetan collie.
Allenâs daily mutt-ation teaches him to love his family while
he gets to lick his own eyeball and cock his leg at the urinal.
The gags are obvious the courtroom drama formulaic but
the A-list cast are insanely game. Alongside Allenâs literally
fetching performance is Robert Downey Jr. hitting panto-
ham levels as a homicidal vivisectionist.
At the last count the unstoppable Air Bud
series has spawned 14 movies so it was only
a matter of time before Netfl ixâs algorithms
burped one up. Space Buddies the
eighth entry fl ies the golden retriever
pups to the moon complete with talking
ferret in Mission Control and a thrilling
action sequence featuring fart-powered
jet-packs. Disney obviously sees the
Air Buddies gang as a canine Seven
Dwarfs (latest member: hip-hop-pup
B-Dawg whose lines seem to have been
written by Vanilla Ice). The challenge facing
British viewers is battling the sense that
youâre watching Gravity remade by Andrex.
Still the fi lm knows its audience: this is babysitter
cinema â visual marshmallow that parents can safely plonk
pre-schoolers in front of. Itâs soft not particularly strong but
does feel very very long.
Inevitably as in any over-crowded subgenre we fi nally
jump the shark. Or hurdle the husky. Or in this case suplex
the spaniel. Draw a Venn diagram with dogs one side and
wrestling on the other and somehow youâve got Russell
Madness. Here a Jack Russell takes the grappling world
by storm with the help of a monkey mentor and a kid who
looks like a miniaturised Taylor Kitsch. FX strive to make
the unthinkable possible but even so grown men
lobbing dogs around a ring is an instant ticket
to the Kingdom Of Wrong. Not to worry: the
terrier-throwing comes with a wholesome
message (âThe strongest tag-team is
familyâ). Whether this means cherish
your relatives or pile-drive your mum
at breakfast isnât entirely clear. Honestly
how long before we get a feature-length
spin-off of The Jerkâs cat-juggling
sketch? Oh God Iâm giving them
ideas again...WORDS SIMON CROOK
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