Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Chloe, voiced by Drew Barrymore, is the spoiled-rotten canine of the title, and is owned by a fashionista played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis dotes on the dog, but makes a mistake when she has to go on a working vacation and palms the dog off on her irresponsible niece (Piper Perabo). Perabo takes the dog with her for a Mexican vacation of her own - and soon Chloe is dog-napped by human scum who run dogfight rings. Chloe and her weary protector, a German Shepherd voiced by Andy Garcia, have a wild series of misadventures as various characters take off after them - including a fearsome Doberman named El Diablo (voiced by Edward James Olmos).

Some people are being awfully harsh on what is essentially supposed to be a *family film*. I personally found it to be very cute. It's a lively, sometimes silly, but sometimes funny talking-animal movie with a steady assortment of adorable four-legged stars, good work by the actors on screen, and spirited performances by the big name cast doing the voices (also including George Lopez (as the fiercely loyal Papi), Placido Domingo, Loretta Devine, Luis Guzman, and Cheech Marin & Paul Rodriguez, who are the biggest suppliers of comedy relief as a conniving rat & iguana who are a scam artist team).

The script does poke gentle fun at those rich people who treat breeds like Chihuahuas as fashion accessories, and who adorn them with "booties" and diamond collars, and the movie even functions as a loving ode to all things Chihuahua.

Something like this may NEVER be taken for "great cinema", but I say it does its job pretty well, even if the story is ultimately formulaic. All in all, it's fairly charming. Chihuahua lovers have a head start.

Followed by two sequels.

Granted Beverly Hills Chihuahua is not a perfect movie, the story is predictable and the script while a vast majority of the time cute and funny was occasionally a little too clichéd, silly and frothy. But hey for a family movie I think it worked. I am a 19 year old girl, and have a soft spot for family movies, so this was ideal and I enjoyed it. The scenery is superb, the soundtrack is suitably upbeat, the dogs are pitch perfect with the lip movements surprisingly not too sloppy, Drew Barrymore and George Lopez are touching and believable together and hearing the amazing Placido Domingo as the voice of Monte is a major plus and make anybody's day, whether you are an opera fan or not(by the way, I am). All in all, I liked it very much for what it was. It is hardly Oscar-worthy, but it never tried to be, it aimed to be undemanding fun and that's what it was. 8/10 Bethany Cox

I agree with some of the previous reviewers - how can you rate a movie without even seeing it?!? Well, guess that gives us the right to rate THEM without even knowing them! I give those people a 1.5.

This is a KID'S movie and to rate it a 2 is ridiculous. It's not the best movie but it sure is much better than A LOT of recent kid's/animated films. My kids, 4 & 5, loved this movie and that's really my biggest requirement. There are many others where they were bored and wanted to leave in less than 30 minutes.

To the people voting it so low (especially ones who vote without viewing) - GET A LIFE!

I don't own any dogs nor do I particularly like or dislike them any more than any other animal. So coming from that utterly neutral position, I can say that this movie isn't nearly as terrible as others have implied - often for their own jaundiced reasons.

First, unlike the contemporary Wall-E, this movie isn't preachy about anything. It's just a silly minor adventure with talking animals where all things work out pretty well in the end - as they must in a kids' movie from Disney. Sure, I was bothered by depictions of the excesses of the super rich of Beverly Hills; the way they lavish excess not only upon themselves but their dogs. However, this does exist. There are people who piously attend charity events for starving strangers and then go home to feed their dogs Kobe beef. That's the world and this movie did not make that world.

I would prefer being upset about watching the reality of such excess than watching the superb and factually accurate Hotel Rwanda. I found that movie unwatchable due to the pain it evoked in me knowing that these events actually occurred during my lifetime.

So given a choice - do I wish to feel pain at real or even a pretend horror depiction or contempt at the super rich's folly? I'll take the latter.

This movie is silliness with some amusing CGI. Let's not get overly concerned that it should be more than that.

Alright, so tons of people are bashing this movie even though they didn't see it. I thought it would be dumb too... until my friend practically dragged me to see it with her. It sounds like this movie would be about chihuahuas in Beverly Hills and their luxurious lives and basically a 'Clueless' with doggies instead. And it is, for the first 10 minutes or so.

But then, it transitions into something completely different than where I thought it was going. I liked how it eventually talked about cultural identity and not forgetting where you're from, which was a good direction for the movie. With that, it was good how the human girl and the girl chihuahua both become less ignorant as the film progresses. And, come on, it was adorable how this was basically a chick flick with little doggies instead! It was pretty hilarious in some parts (George Lopez as Papi!) especially with some interesting song choices, lol. My only quibbles were the slight sappiness with the whole Disney has-to-have-a-moral dialogue and that Drew Barrymore's voice was annoying after a while as the lead chihuahua with her whining... Still, it was pretty great and it got the whole theater laughing at several points.

It's nice to have a movie that doesn't take itself that seriously once in a while :] So basically, go see this before you condemn it to a rating worse than "Gigli"'s!