In tierischer Mission

I found Good Boy! while flipping through channels this afternoon and was pulled in to watch it all. There is not other word for the movie but cute--it is not great art, but a delightful little fantasy about dogs and people and their special bond.

The voice actors for the dogs are excellent, with a special shout out for Brittany Murphy's nervous Nelly--quite touching. There is not much computerized distortion of the dogs' appearance so the dogs are cute and natural. If you are going to make a movie about dogs, it is nice to see real dogs. Hubble is adorable!

The acting is a little stiff and formulaic from most characters, but Liam Aiken gives an amazingly natural and touching performance. I cared about this kid and Hubble the dog. I admit to a few tears at the end. Nice for the whole family--even my cat-person son liked this.

This is a very entertaining lighthearted film, it's for anybody who has a pet. 12 year old Owen Baker(Liam Aiken) is a very lonely boy, who's best friends so far seem to be the neighbors dogs he walks everyday. Owen really wants one of his own. One day his parents take him to the pound to get one. He finds a cute dog and names him Hubble. But Owen slowly discovers, this is no ordinary dog. Who just happens to be a very intelligent dog from outer space. A pure delight for the whole family. Matthew Broderick is also good as the voice of Hubble. It's funny and delightful. Please don't quit making movies like this.

This movie is a little better than OK. It's wholesome entertainment that makes the not-terribly-original point that people and dogs have a special bond. And maybe it says a little about the alienation some children feel when growing up in a two-career suburban family.

The boy at the center of the film, Owen, is pleasant without stealing the show from the talking dogs. The girl who befriends him is equally pleasant and also not a show-stealer. The two boys who torment our hero and the dogs are sort of standard issue neighborhood bullies. Owen's dad is a stereotypical clueless father.

Owen's mom, however, is an interesting character. I think she's being played as an essentially decent woman who is too caught up in her real estate wheelings and dealings to notice that her son is lonely and a little depressed. However, to me she comes off as really creepy: a rootless, valueless suburban capital gains huckster who would sell the family home (and her son's happiness) in an instant it there was a buck to be made in it.

So why is this movie a little better than average? Well, the dogs are fun. The voice-over work is nicely-cast (old trooper Carl Reiner is especially good), the dogs get some funny lines, and some good computer work makes the dogs look pretty convincing at mouthing their lines.

I decided to write this because I'm annoyed with the review this movie got in the L.A. Times. It's their right to pan any movie, of course, but it bugs me when a reviewer dismissively puts down a movie like this because it's no Citizen Kane, or even Citizen Canine. Well, gee, it's a talking dog movie. It's not supposed to be deep.

I went to see this movie because I am a fan of Liam Akin's.

I wasn't expecting much out of the movie, though.

But the movie turned out to be better than I expected.

It had a few flavors of "Benji" and "The Cat From Outter Space" mixed into it.

A definite must-see for people who have children or nieces and nephews.

Good Boy

This is a movie for dog lovers. If you like dogs, than you most likely will like this movie. The dogs were great. They looked good. There seemed to be little to no CGI interference with the dogs. The human actors left a lot to be desired, but the movie really wasn't about them anyway. Dogs are from space. They were supposed to colonize Earth, but have instead become pets. The dogs from the home star get mad and want to take away the Earth dogs. That's the basic plot behind the movie. Good for kids and adults who like dogs. Dogs are cool animals and need more movies. Sure the movie was silly, but at least it had dogs in it.