When rambunctious great dane Marmaduke's (Pete Davidson) latest escapade of causing a tidal wave at a birthday party goes viral on social media, both Marmaduke and his family The Winslows are made infamous internet sensations with many labeling Maramduke as "untrainable". Legendary dog trainer Guy Hilton (Brian Hull) approaches the Winslows with an offer to train Marmaduke and turn him into a champion for the dog show circuit with a $1 million prize for the winner which Winslow family patriarch Phil (David Koechner) eagerly accepts. Following an intense training regimen, Marmaduke is ready for the circuit, but reigning champion Zeus (J. K. Simmons) has plans to sabotage Maramduke.
Announced in 2017, Marmaduke is the second adaptation of the newspaper comic strip of the same name by Brad Anderson. The strip was written and drawn by Anderson from 1954 until his death in 2015 and is still syndicated with Brad's son Paul still writing the strip. The first adaptation of Maramduke staring Owen Wilson in the titular role was released to audience indifference as producer John Davis tried and failed to recapture the success of the Bill Murray fronted Garfield films. Having read Marmaduke I never found it particularly funny or endearing with the main schtick of "Dog does something strange/destructive, family reacts" not being all that amusing in the earliest panels and only seemed like it served as space filler at best. The 2010 film that adapted the character was anemic and barebones with lots of unconvincing CGI which was par for the course when accounting for Underdog, Garfield, or various other lowest common denominator talking animal movies. Frankly I didn't expect to see a second attempt at Marmaduke, and unlike the 2010 film which was stupid and bland, the 2022 film goes into full-on trainwreck territory.
The animation in Marmaduke looks absolutely awful. The movie is directed by Mark A. Z. Dippé a former visual effects artist who cut his teeth making the ground breaking effects for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day before making the transition to film director with 1997's Spawn. Since Spawn Dippe has stuck mainly with children's films and is no stranger to newspaper comic adaptations having directed the trilogy of bottom of the barrel Garfield films Garfield Gets Real (2007), Garfield's Fun Fest (2008), and Garfield's Pet Force (2009). Given his career with visual effects you'd at the very least expect something visually pleasing, but Marmaduke is one of the ugliest and cheapest looking animated films I've seen since Norm of the North. The animation and models feel very plasticky and robotic with movement and flow feeling stilted at best as if frames of the animation are simply missing. The character models range anywhere from bland and uninspired to falling into the uncanny valley with the animation on the dogs talking looking grotesque to put it as nicely as possible. And then there's the effects for things like water or particle effects like smoke, haze, or a fart gas cloud (yes, seriously). Scenes involving any kind of fluid such as water, shampoo, or Maraduke's drool the fluid either clumps together like it's made of saran wrap or it's poorly integrated 2D assets overlayed on 3D assets in a manner that's only slightly less awkward than when Top Cat: The Movie did it.
The writing in Marmaduke is just a mess, credit to the 2010 film: at least it followed a structure (bare bones and banal as it was). Maramduke 2022 however, you could watch this movie and have no idea if you're in the second act, third act, or what because narrative cohesion in this film is more a polite suggestion than a requirement. The movie has TWO third act nadirs with one happening just barely at the 40 minute mark where we get the major setpiece where Marmaduke embarrasses himself by eating too much and using the competition trophy as a bathroom. This is where we get the fart gas sequence featured prominently in the trailer, but the movie takes a dumb joke a step further and makes the scene apocalyptic with an extended freeze frame sequence where screams and anguished cries are heard as we pan over faces frozen in terror and we see a pile of birds who've fallen out of the sky into a pile who seem like they're dead. The last time I saw a gas scene in an animated movie portrayed to this horrifying of a degree, it was in the independently produced animated dog film Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero and that was a serious story that took place during World War I. The movie only gets dumber and more nonsensical from that point forward with Marmaduke somehow running around the world (don't ask), going to an international dog show with participants from around the world including a Chinese rapping martial-artist Shih Tzu who sounds like Confucius and has psychic powers (don't ask, and did I mention China co-production?), and a French Poodle love interest who falls in love with Marmaduke because.....I'll get back to you on that.
Marmaduke plays like a funhouse mirror regurgitation of every bad animated children's film you've seen over the last 20 years. With all the time I've spent dumping on this movie you'd probably think you should avoid seeing it and if we're talking children's entertainment, yeah there's FAR better movies like this that you can watch (pretty much any Illumination movie is head, shoulders, knees, and even toes above this thing), but I will say Marmaduke is dumb but it's fascinatingly dumb. Every moment of Marmaduke features something stupid or nonsensical but I was never annoyed while watching it and found myself weirdly drawn to finish it to see "how stupid?". If we're talking rubbernecking entertainment, Marmaduke will suffice for your "WTF animated misfire" and you can probably riff it if you're not too ashamed of yourself for viewing it.
