“CATS & DOGS 2 : The REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE”
While I thought ‘Marmaduke’ was unfairly bashed by critics, this one pretty much deserved the trashing it took. The original was a heartwarming story with a cute puppy that finds himself in the middle of a dog vrs. cat war that secretly rages on without human awareness. The remake offers Chris O’Donnell instead of a young boy and instead of an adorable beagle puppy, the hero is an adult German Shepherd... loses major points in cuddle-ability with that switch.
Although I liked it, the original was only brought back to mind by viewing a replay on TV – Oh yeah, NOW I remember, the one where Jeff Goldblum played a scientist that was trying to find a cure for dog allergies! It was then I realized that the villain cat was called Mr. Tinkles, not Kitty Galore – So the title of the sequel confused me.
Mr. Tinkles has a cameo in #2 which only served to remind me how much better at being annoying he was than Kitty Galore (voiced by Bette Midler)
Next to nothing works, even on a kiddie-flick level here – the dogs aren’t ‘cute’ because they’re almost totally CG’d – ‘Lou’ the original beagle is back, but they didn’t put any effort whatsoever into making him look like the dog from the first movie – they didn’t even try to get someone who even vaguely sounded like Tobey McGuire to voice him.
& speaking of voices – Nick Nolte as Butch, the lead spy dog, sounds like he should be in a rehab kennel detoxing instead of saving the world from a bald pussy. A new character is a ‘stool’ pigeon that acts so 1940’s ‘Negro’, there should have been 2 of them & they should have been called Amos ‘n’ Andy – it was that embarrassing to listen to.
The cuteness factor they decided on was to have Diggs, the German Shepherd (A washed out police dog that is given a second chance as a spy) partner with a female cat – the premise being dogs & cats must join forces to stop the dreadful Kitty Galore (A shaved pussy owned by an inept carnival magician) Being a ‘dog person’ I can tell you straightaway – it doesn’t work – it should be dogs vrs. cats & never the twain shall meet...
The fact that they end with a ‘Silence of the Lambs’ parody which hints there will be yet another sequel showed that the filmmakers were optimistic about #2’s success at the box office (I wonder if those plans have been squelched yet?)
2 comments:
Would have liked to see your review of Never Let Me Go instead of something like this. The laster has Oscar chances and I thought you like Mulligan and Knightley.
When I'm bored by the two minute trailer, why would I pay full admission to be bored for an even longer period of time?
I save movies like Cats & Dogs 2 for the $3 theatre (perhaps I'll go see 'Never Let Me Go' if it comes to East Valley)
I do like to look at Keira Knightley, but she's been in some pretty gawdawful films & I liked Carey Mulligan in the one film I've seen her in.
I'm not paying full price to see The Social Network either - that trailer bored me as well.
I used to see films just because of
Oscar buzz but I'd usually be disappointed & feel that I should have followed my gut instinct that it was going to be crap.
& with money being tight I have to wait until they're available for $3 a ticket.
I could have pretended like I never went to see Cats & Dogs 2, like I did with the last Ice Age film, but I'd seen two very enjoyable movies in "Secretariat"
& "It's A Funny Kind Of Story" so I was inspired to write again & dashed off a quick 'warning' about C & D 2.
And being one of my regular contributors you should know - anything with dogs in it is going to attract me... even if I know it's going to stink!
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