Marmaduke

So the first two reviewers who panned it never saw it. How open-minded of them. Some people are way too sophisticated for a movie like this and should just order a latte and go to an art house movie.

I saw it, it was fun. Kids and adults laughed throughout. At the end adult guys in the lobby were cracking jokes and repeating lines from the movie.

It has a strong theme of "don't put others into groups and turn your back on your friends" and "parents, pay attention to your kids. Work and career are not as important as family." Which maybe explains why some won't like it - maybe those themes hit a little too close to home.

This movie was a great diversion from all the problems going on today. Relax and enjoy it.

My 3 year old loves animal movies, even Beverly Hills Chihuahua (which let's face it was pretty average at best). She didn't like this movie at all.

It's not cute, it's not adult, it's not a lot of things and the most important thing it isn't is entertaining.

This film is a horrible adaptation from a beloved cartoon - the characters are not really likable, there is a confusing mish-mosh of adult aimed humor and situations involving the dogs, and then just horrible parts featuring the humans. William H Macy is sinister and extremely creepy as the dog food company owner - he could have been kooky and funny, a little zany perhaps, but no, he comes across as aggressive, pushy and sinister.

The story itself is stupid and lacking in any real interest for the young kids this movie is really supposed to be aimed at. The adults forced to take the kids won't find anything better in it either.

I would advise anyone not to even both renting it for a dollar, it's not worth it, and I don't say that about many movies.

CGI may be very clever and way better than it used to be, but this movie over uses it to the point of boredom on the part of the viewer.

CGI isn't enough if there is no real, interesting story - I for one could care less about Phil and his new job at the pet food company.

Nothing about this movie is appealing!

The funniest joke in the long-awaited live-action/CGI adaptation of everyone's second-least favourite comic strip Marmaduke is actually intentional, which is kind of impressive. Of course, it's not funny in the way that the filmmakers intended it to be funny so that's too bad I guess but it is actually a joke that is actually funny. Some connection had been made, through the layers of awful script and boring staging and legitimately creepy CGI. They intended to make me laugh, when they had the mean dog Bosco call out our Owen-Wilson-voiced hero in the middle of the hero's crowning moment, a big raucous "O.C. rager" of a party, icing our dog out with a growled, "Marmaduke? More like… Marmafake." And they did.

I laughed, I admit it. Marmapuke, Marmapoop, Marmadreck… there's a lot of ways the screenwriters could have gone, and they chose Marmafake, which…well dog-gone it, it doesn't even rhyme. Notes: I also laughed when the filmmakers, seeking to set the tone after Marmaduke & family's big cross-country move to the O.C. from Kansas so the dad (Lee Pace) could work for a dog-food company with a mean boss (William H. Macy, for some inexplicable reason) by mixing "California" by Phantom Planet almost directly into "California Love" by 2Pac. I assume they'd spent all the soundtrack licensing money by that point, because they left out "California" by Belinda Carlisle and "California" by John Mayall and "California" by Joni Mitchell and "Going back to Cali(fornia)" by L.L. Cool J and "Hotel California" by the Eagles. Too bad.

Anyway Marmaduke is, we're told, a big, gangly goofy dog played by two or more real dogs in the film, that talks with a creepy CGI animated mouth. I'm pretty sure, at least, that they used more than one dog because sometimes Marmaduke has a big, dangly pair of testicles, and sometimes he doesn't, which is obviously problematic and I started thinking, while on-screen Marmaduke was having another interminable dialogue session with some other dog about something that to so brazenly, as filmmakers, use dogs with varying levels of testicle-havingness is kind of bold, almost as if they're saying "Yeah, sometimes 'duke's got nuts and sometimes he doesn't. We don't care, because nobody will notice, and if they do notice, it's because you're a perverted weirdo who both looks at and notes dog's nuts." Which left me feeling vaguely insulted, and terribly aggrieved.

So Marmaduke has some friends that are dogs and some enemies, and he makes some mistakes and eventually gets sad and runs away from his family and his haughty girlfriend, voiced by Fergie from the Black-Eyed Peas, who is actually a better voice actor than she is a singer. Marmaduke then falls into a sink-hole along with another funny-looking but faithful and nice dog (voice of Emma Stone) and then or perhaps before then there is a dog-surfing championship and everything is fine, even the sub-plots about 'duke's dad's mean boss and his kid that hates soccer.

Kids might like it, but I doubt it, as aside from being creepy and awkward and really poorly plotted it's just… dull. One of the first thing they teach you in screen writing school is "show, don't tell", that expository dialogue is a no-no and narrators all the more so. But dogs can't really act, and they don't really do anything except run around and eat sandwiches so for the film to have a narrative structure the dogs have to talk, a lot, explaining everything, and because dogs don't drive or frame houses or fold clothes they talk while just… standing there looking around. It's hellaciously boring, but probably unavoidable as Marmaduke is clearly an intellectual property that fans have literally been screeching and rending their clothes to see brought to the big screen and given the ol' Hollywood treatment.

I don't have anything more to say about Marmaduke. 2/10

My son likes dog movies so I put this on for him (Netflix).

How this script ever got green lit is beyond me. Imagine a lame sit-com without its laugh track, and it would still be better than "Marmaduke."

One scene in particular stands out: the Dad (whose acting is atrocious) gets the brilliant(?) idea to sell organic dog food by putting dogs on surfboards.

Because... um... yeah, moving on.

So they force these poor animals onto boards and a huge tsunami comes... two dogs are launched towards the beach while everyone laughs it up (including a TV commentary crew). The titular dog goes flying up into the air and plunges deep into the water, where he could easily drown.

The commentator says something like "What a silly dog!" as if this is all hilarious.

Geezus!

This movie is trash. Everyone involved should be flogged for this atrocity.

I seriously think some users here on IMDb are being undeservedly harsh on this movie. What the motives are, I'm not too sure, but I can recommend some of them to watch the documentary Heckler. Now, back to subject, sorry for digressing, I've seen worse movies get higher ratings at IMDb. Now, I'm not really a fan of Owen Wilson or movies that have animals talking, but I feel this movie is at least a high 4 to low 5, in keeping in line with other movies reviewed on IMDb. I voted 5. I watched 2 movies - namely, Thomas the cool mule and that Aussie Ted movie that I would rank at 2 - 3 each, but not this movie. This movie is not brilliant or the best kiddies movie out there, but it's good, clean family fun. That's all I expected when I took my kid to watch this. And he enjoyed it. Unlike those other 2 movies I mentioned earlier.