Bad! Bad doggy movie. It lie down and play dead for almost one hour and twenty two minutes!. Me know, me know. “Come on, Monster. It be a kidz movie! Turn off your brain and just settle for dis crap entertainment. Your expectashuns should be lower.” But monster ask “Why?”. Sky High be a kidz movie and, while it not a perfekt film, it have heart and someting Underdog lack: effort. Granted, dis movie not Shark Boy and Lava Girl bad but it pretty listless, paint by numbers fare. It all feel sooooo tired.
Movie begin wit our hero, a beagle, flunking out of police dog skool. Apparently, when dat happen, dey just release de dogs to run loose in de streets. Beagle get captured by goofy goon who bring him back to sekret lab where little evil scientist plan to experiment on him. Of course, evil scientists be as unlucky as dey be smart and experiment go awry. Beagle trashes lab and gets superjuice spilled on him. He make good his escape by blasting thru door!
Outside and on de run, he hit by car driven by doofus security guard. Doofus adopt beagle, call him Shoeshine (?), and bring him back home to whiny son.
Boy doesn’t want dog. But, of course, in true cinema cliche fashion, he come around. Espeshully when he realize dog have superpowers. And can talk! Now monster not sure why, but it seem like boy de only one who can understand dog. Mebbe. Dere be scenes where he be out and about, chatting away wit dog, while passersby pay no attention. But den dere be a scene like one where beagle see hot dog cart and yell “Hot dogs be made out of real dogs!” and people eating hot dogs spit dem back out. So, which it be?
Beagle become unlikely superhero. He combat crime wit his superhearing, supersmell, superstrength, superspeed, and superflying ability. He become a media sensation! Personally, me tink just de fakt dat he can fly be good enuf to get him on Oprah.
Like Clark Kent, he try to maintain a dual identity as both Shoeshine and Underdog! Not sure why. What? Are de other dogs going to rat him out? How? No one can understand dem!!!
He fall in love wit King Charles Spaniel named Polly (or maybe Molly). In cute tip of hat to Superman movie, he pick her up and fly her around like Supes taking Lois for a ride. Sadly, dese types of moments few and far between. 🙁
Tings looking pretty sweet for Underdog. UNTIL he be captured by evil scientist who steal back his powers and give dem to tree German Shepherds. Wit help of his accomplices, scientist kidnap mayor and take city hall where he plan to explode a bomb dat will turn everyone in de area into his slave. Oh, yeah. He built one of dose. Interesting, no? No? Not even a little?
Even tho he no longer superdog, beagle charge into city hall and take on German Shepherds. He get conveniently knocked into scientist and get superjuice spilled on him. Again. Monster can imagine direktor: “Okay, it’s almost lunch. Let’s wrap dis movie up!”
Back to his old super self, Underdog beat up on goon and scientist, den talk German Shepherds into helping him. He find bomb and dig hole to center of de Earth where it blow up.
Boy rush over and pick him up. He all limp like de Count after Grover’s Pimps Up Ho’s Down party. Cue sad music. But den Underdog wake up! He be alive! Hurray!
And, for some reason, doofus security guard dad becomes a hero – me guess becuz everyone in a giving mood.
Movie end wit outtakes! But, sadly, even outtakes are lame – staged bits of phony aktor dog screwing up. Not one accidental onset poop!
Verdikt: Our kidz deserve better.
Rating: 2.5 chocolate chippee cookies.
Cookiemonster should review some anime sometime, perhaps an anime movie? Ghibli movies are mainstream enough that some of your blog followers may of heard of them Joe.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! When did you pick up Reliquary?
I betcha after this one you’re gonna wanna try some track rabbit. 🙂
das
Cookies does a bang up job on the movies he is given to watch, (some really awful ones) and I am thinking, he only does it for the cookies? Hope these are some fantastic cookies, like the ones Akemi makes! Feel better Akemi.
You know I was quite prepared to hate this movie, and I particularly don’t like movies where animals or babies are made to talk through the misuse of visual effects, but this… I didn’t mind.
Maybe it’s because Underdog was one of my favourite cartoons as a kid and even then it was ridiculously cheesy so I was expecting little else, I don’t know. And of course, the plot was as thin as possible while still being there. Still, I found it, I don’t know, “cute” I guess.
Actually, there were a few fairly funny throwaway lines in it, but sadly they were just that and never really related to anything in the plot. It did indeed often feel like a series of one-liners.
The part with the kid and dog walking along talking and no one noticing didn’t really bother me. It’s my general experience that most people walk around so @$#$# self-absorbed that they wouldn’t notice a talking pink elephant, let alone a dog.
Things I liked:
I love that they made fun of “It’s clobbering time.” The more mockery on that movie, the better. I think Patrick Warburton in anything is awesome. He just sounds funny! Loved the little “homage” to the Lady and the Tramp “meatball” scene.
Things I didn’t:
They did seem to spend precious little time on making an actual story. It sometimes seems they are going to build on the drama of their family situation and backstory but it very quickly goes nowhere. And in the end, it’s really just a bunch of stuff that happens, and a bomb.
Question: How the Hell did Polly get to the top of the Capitol Building, and why??
Why didn’t Barsinister just use the DNA on himself right away anyway?
Jack’s dad certainly got reinstated easily.
I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the amount of public property destruction that Underdog wreaks with no apparent repercussion, but then again I suppose he IS a dog. 🙂
I have to admit I’m a bit distracted this evening – my step-mom is back in the hospital (I just got home from there), this time with her chronic heart failure manifesting itself with fluid on the lungs. I feel so bad for her because she’s so frustrated with her deteriorating condition, and I have to admit that so many of the symptoms as they progress remind me of how my Dad got worse and worse before his passing a year and a half ago. Then again, things have seemed bad before and she’s bounced back quite dramatically. Hopefully things will go well.
Joe, Joe, Joe. Why do you keep doing this to yourself? Underdog? Really?
But it is nice to see the second Pendergast book on your reading list. I guess you liked Relic,eh?
Tee, hee, hee… Track Rabbit. Yum. ;D
DANG. That was supposed to be 😀
@ Joe: Sorry. Couldn’t resist! Those awesome pics were just begging to be made into fangurl art! http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa214/missnjack/joesig_zps1abf762b.jpg
Have a lovely evening! 🙂
LJ
Sparrow, it can’t be any worse than cod sperm! Blargh. 😛
das
We should have had an Underdog cartoon rewatch at Joe’s house instead. Then at least we could have had the Mallozzi Blog Choir sing the theme song (When in this world the headlines read of those whose hearts are filled with greed…) and we could have recited all the cool lines along with Our Hero (The secret compartment in my ring I fill with an Underdog Super Energy Pill!). And there would have been Akemi’s cookies!
@mannas7mom and Joan001: Thank you! I love my little Ewok. 🙂
Have to agree with Sparro_hawk on this movie, Joe. WHY? 🙂
@ Deni – Count me another fan!
@ LG – LOLOL!!! 😆 Well done! I think I just might have to snatch that! 😀
das
“Granted, dis movie not Shark Boy and Lava Girl bad but it pretty listless, paint by numbers fare.” Now cut that out!! Quit it!! Shark Boy and Lava Girl was goooood!!
“Movie begin wit our hero, a beagle,…” STOP!! Say no more! TEN chocolate chip cookies, 20 brownies, and 2 pieces of cake for any movie starring a beagle! Awesome! Look at how cute he is!
Where does everyone find these movies to watch? Seriously, I don’t have a clue where to look for these films. Although in this case, I’m not unhappy I missed it.
I’m just catching up. I need to quit working so I can keep up with the blog. Just not enough hours in the day.
Yay 49er’s! I’ll actually be watching the Super Bowl for a change, and not just doing laundry and cleaning.
The Shrine and Whispers were both favorites of mine. As so many folks here have said, David Hewlett gave such a emotional and fabulous performance in The Shrine. Both he and Flanigan were fantastic in their scenes. The pier scene made me laugh and cry at the same time. Great stuff! And I’ve always felt that Kate Hewlett was seamless in the way she just fit into the show. Kudos to her, and Brad Wright for such a great script.
Whispers was creepy and fun. I wasn’t use to being terrified by an SGA episode, but this one did just that. Great job in scaring the crap out of us Joe! 🙂 And thank you for giving Kelly her time to shine. She not only found a place in our hearts, but also a place in Sci-Fi history.
@Deni: Michael is the most adorable kid. I can see he’s going to be a handful, from now until, like, forever. 🙂
@ mannas7mom on yesterday’s post:
Thanks for the congratulations! I and my family are excited to see the Ravens going to the Superbowl!
And I thought you had a very nice homage to Kelly. Can I guess from the Aslan reference that she was a C. S. Lewis fan?
Who here thinks Joe should write a children film script. He moans about them often enough.
paloosa many probably get them from less the legitimate sources, through I seen many of them at the local supermarket for around a couple of quid each. Last year there was a shop selling 5 DVDs for five pounds, there were some terrible films there, I should know, I bought ten of them, and made sure I picked the worst looking ones, I still haven’t got around to watching most of them.
Joe, ot question, Do you know if they got Woolseys name for his character from the 1993 movie Robert Picardo starred in (Matinee) with John Goodman, whose name in the show was Woolsey? thanks. Just watched the movie, funny.
I loved that cartoon… the movie broke my heart.
I’ll be in Mexico for the SuperBowl. Oh darn.
Marsha_R didn’t supply the “Shoeshine” connection to the original cartoon. Underdog’s secret identity was “a lowly shoeshine boy”.
@gforce: Give your stepmom an extra hug. I understand the frustration. Congestive heart failure was one of my late mom’s problems.
I knew when you brought up Shark boy/lava girl that Ponytail would be ONLY one who would protest 😆 . Why do this to Cookie? What did he EVER do to you? (shakes head in disgust)
So you must have liked Relic. That’s good but don’t see the movie version. It’s on the Shark boy/Lava Girl scale of badness.
I started watching Underdog fully expecting it to be awful and, well, it wasn’t as bad as I has anticipated. OK, it wasn’t great. The movie was seriously lacking in plot. I couldn’t figure out why any of the characters were doing what they were doing.
Why did the evil scientist have to go underground? He seemed to be doing legitimate (albeit evil) research and then the dog destroys the lab and suddenly the scientist is fired and having to move to the sewers?
Jim Belushi quits his job as a Police officer so he can get a less dangerous job and spend time with his son . . . so he gets a job as a security guard? Sure, it could be argued that it’s safer but the hours aren’t great as evidenced by him getting home from the night shift and then being called straight back to work.
I have to agree with gforce, though, Patrick Warburton is a legend! Here is my second favourite thing Patrick has ever done. Do not watch this video if you’re hungry!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IURtlQKIWk0
And here is my most favourite thing he has ever done (and also my favourite movie of all time):
@baterista: Thanks, it sure is a roller coaster, isn’t it? I just came from the hospital and she still seems pretty ill, but her spirits are good so that can only be a help. She has bounced back from stuff like this before, but I know from when my Dad went through it about a couple of years ago before he passed away, the trend is only in one direction. That said, we’re taking it a day at a time.
@LJ — well done on the fangurl art!
Now, no one laugh… I keep an audio file on my work desktop of the Underdog opening theme. I often play it before starting a training class or as a wake up during particularly boring meeting. It is always appreciated. Good ‘ol Underdog (and the Wally Cox visual it always brings).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060037/
2cats
JeffW — (Forgot to tweak my log-in name yesterday so I could use the photo I wanted.)
Bet your family will have a BIG Super Bowl Party! 🙂
Thanks, re: our Kelly. She didn’t just love books, she lived for them. Yep, she was a fan of the Narnia Chronicles, and was re-reading them the week she passed. In fact, the final book of the series, The Last Battle, was the last book she ever read. (See comments on Joe’s memorial blog for her. Will e-mail.)
Tam Dixon — Am practicing those headache management techniques. For the 2nd day. Oy, to borrow Deni’s phrase. :-/
@ Tam Dixon – “So you must have liked Relic. That’s good but don’t see the movie version. It’s on the Shark boy/Lava Girl scale of badness.”
Now that was uncalled for. Don’t stoop to Joe’s level. 😉
basically, i’m against any live-action version of an animated series.
@ Ponytail – I would have to agree with Tam. I didn’t see the movie, but the Pendergast character was totally written out (because he was too ‘weird’), and I am of the not so humble opinion that any movie that removes the most interesting character certainly must suck.
das
@Ponytail: Sorry
@for the love of Beckett: headache management treatments? Do share, please.
Underdog was my favorite cartoon growing up. I started out not liking this movie, but then it grew on me before the end.