March 2006

The tagline for this film is “Raise the Woof.”  If you think that’s incredibly clever and hysterically funny than this film is for you.  If however your age includes more than one digit and you don’t suffer from some kind of mental deficiency you may want to pass on this dog.  And this movie is a dog.  One very stupid dog.  Of course being neither mentally challenged nor a child the film isn’t geared towards me and I do believe young children will enjoy the obvious jokes of Tim Allen running around and acting like a dog for almost 100 minutes.  Me, not so much.

The Shaggy Dog (2006)
2 Stars

Think of a person pretending to act like a dog.  All the obvious images that came into your head are in this movie.  The film is filled with shameless and obvious jokes (including the obligatory “Who Let the Dog Out?” sequence) and never once strives to get past them for something more and examine the other consequences of such a change.  Now you don’t really need to go further in a film that is exceptionally funny but this film isn’t.  It’s so obvious and predictable that kids may love it but adults are going to roll their eyes more than chuckle.

Dave Douglas (Tim Allen) is your typical movie dad who has a demanding job, beautiful wife (Kristin Davis), and two kids (Zena Grey and Spencer Breslin) who think he’s a jerk and think, correctly, that he doesn’t understand them.  Dave works as Assistant D.A. and is on the fast track to be promoted when the current District Attorney (Danny Glover) retires.  Everything is going great even though his family life is suffering Dave is immensely happy.

Then a 300 year-old magical Tibetan sheep dog that was kidnapped from a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas by a drug company (no, you didn’t misread that) bites him on the hand and he starts to act more and more like a dog.  Any cheap joke you can think of comes next.  Tim Allen chasing a cat, Tim Allen scratching his ear with his sleeve, Tim Allen peeing by raising his right leg at the urinal, and Tim Allen fetching a stick or frisbee or bone are just some of the many, many obvious jokes that find themselves into the film.  About the only cheap joke they don’t use is to have him hump somebody’s leg.  When he completely turns into the dog he learns truths about his son and daughter and finds new understanding and respect for them.  Through the experience he becomes a better man and reconnects with his wife and family.  All together now:  Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.  He also decides to expose the drug company and their unorthodox experiments involving genetics run by Dr. Kozak (Robert Downey Jr.).

So what works?  Well the special effects aren’t bad and the different genetic creatures of Dr. Kozak are interesting to look at (though I don’t really understand how making the more like dogs gives them human understanding and intelligence).  Some of the gags are funny but you will see them coming from miles away.  Zena Grey comes off okay but the other kids in the film look uncomfortable with their lines and in many cases appear to be reading straight from cue cards.

It’s not horrific, it’s just the same predictable and obvious jokes over and over.  The film contains no surprises and very little joy and odd back story about the dog doesn’t really fit with the rest of the film.  I don’t need to be given a half-assed reason for why Tim Allen is going to be turned into a dog.  I’m ready to suspend my belief walking in, but when you make up a story it better be good. 

So should you see this film?  You’re paying for a film that’s going to give you exactly what you expect but nothing more and despite all the gags and elaborate stunts their isn’t a single one that isn’t instantly forgettable, much like this film.  If you’ve got young kids I think they’ll enjoy themselves but even for them it’s not a must see.