The Karate Dog

The actors doing the voices for the dogs--especially Chevy Chase--seem to be the most talented here. Also Nicollette Sheridan as a white cat who provides valuable help getting things done. And Lori Petty is quite good as Fowler's version of Siri.

The dogs, and the cat, are also talented musicians. Or appear to be.

The animals can't be that talented, but CGI helps. It's realistic only in the sense that if dogs could move like this, they would look this way.

The movie's title is misleading in that karate is rarely used, but it is used. Cho Cho and Cage also breakdance. You KNOW that's not Jon Voight doing most of it.

And what about Jon Voight? Isn't he a respected actor? What is he doing here? He's not that good, although you could blame the drugs. Still, it is possible for an actor to show talent as someone going senile, even comically. I'm just not sure that's what's happening here.

Jaime Pressly hadn't won any of her Emmys yet, but she does show promise here. Ashley is sweet and intelligent, and of course beautiful.

Fowler is interested in Ashley romantically. This leads to a hilarious Cyrano de Bergerac scene in a restaurant.

It's a kid's fantasy, though a little on the violent side for young kids. But I can't see this appealing to that many adults.

Still, it made me relatively happy.

SFPD Computer Expert Peter Flower (Simon Rex) investigates the murder of an man (The late Pat Morita), what seems to be a murder/robbery case. But Peter discover that the man, who recently murder has an dog named Cho Cho (Voiced by Chevy Chase). Which Cho Cho could actually talk to Humans and he's the only witness to the crime. Cho Cho feels that his master was up to something and Peter tries to help Cho Cho to solve it. So Cho Cho could avenged his master's murderer. But Cho Cho and Peter finds themselves an strange case that involves Dogs on the race track and an millionaire (Jon Voight), who thinks who found the fountain of young by using Drugs and Dog DNA!

Directed by the late Bob Clark (Black Christmas, A Christmas Story, Porky's) made an silly comedy that aimed at Kids. Although the low-budget of the film is hurt by most of the CGI effects on the film. An bigger budgeted was certainly needed in this film as well. But it's Chase as the voice of "Cho Cho" makes it bearable. Chase certainly gives most of the laughs in this one. Rex is likable enough in the movie and he has an hilarious sequence with Jaime Pressly in the restaurant scene. Only Voight seems to be embarrassed with his film and he gets goofier by the minute with his bizarre performance. Which Voight must paid well to be in this movie and he got to work with Clark again on the "Baby Geniuses 2"!

The Canadian DVD has an fine Pan & Scan (1.33:1) transfer and an decent Dolby 2.0 Surround Sound. The movie works best during the first half and This is certainly not the best work of Clark's or his worst. But it's decent enough and it is certainly better than "Baby Geniuses". Voight reunited with his co-star Ron Lester from "Varsity Blues" Voight even executive produced this oddball movie. (** ½/*****).

The Karate Dog (2004)

* (out of 4)

A man (Pat Morita) is murdered and the only eyewitness is his dog Cho Cho (voice of Chevy Chase). Soon a homicide detective (Simon Rex) is working with the dog to find the man responsible and it turns out to be Hamilton Cage (Jon Voight). THE KARATE DOG is highly recommended to those wanting to see a former Oscar-winner get into a karate match with a CGI dog. This was the next to last film that director Bob Clark would do and sadly it's another stinker. It's somewhat hard to be too critical of the film as the filmmakers were clearly not wanting to make a "good" film but instead just make something that would appeal to children. I think some kids might enjoy the campy nature of the film. After all, it's not everyday that you get to see a movie where a dog is doing all sorts of karate moves on people. In fact, the first sequence where we see the dog in action actually had me laughing extremely hard simply because of how silly it actually was. From this point on things get rather boring as we get all sorts of bad comedy, lame one-liners and some pretty poor performances. Rex just isn't appealing in the lead and he can never really keep the viewer interested. Morita is hardly in the movie and Jaime Pressly turns in a pretty weak performance. Voight, well, what can you say about him? I'm not sure how he got involved in these films but he's certainly way too talented. Chase is pretty forgettable in the voice role but you really can't blame him since he has no good lines. THE KARATE DOG isn't a film to take serious but it's clear that not many making it took it serious either.

Not even worth watching for free...that is about the best way to put it after watching this mess on TV for free. I know Simon Rex is NOT an actor...so why was he cast as a lead in anything? We are suppose to believe he is a detective? But the plot gets even BETTER!! He becomes the owner of a dog who was a witness to a murder...and that dog can TALK!!! OMG...it gets even crazier! The dog lets tt he cop in on the fact that ALL animals can talk..in their own language, of course..but us humans just can't hear it. The detective decides to help this dog solve his masters' murder..and goes bumbling around doing various stupid things in an attempt add some humor to the mix. He meets a patrol cop who has plans to be detective some day too..and of course she jumps right in to help him out. Jamie Priestly is the eye candy for this film...and that is about all she is good for here I am not sure if she is really a talented actress at all. Seeing an accomplished actor like Jon Voight lower his standards to do this was almost a sad thing. He was suppose to be some amazing karate master? His moves were stiff and anything but realistic. Even his attempts at being tough was lame. Taking a concept that has been done before...a talking dog in a movie..was fine..but doing it on what must have been a low budget was not a good plan. Even the actors playing the children of Jon Voights' character were bad choices..they looked too old to be believable. Someone who was as skilled in martial arts as he was would have also taught his children the skills too at some point...in reality anyway. Not much was realistic or believable here...and I think even kids would become bored after a while. Seeing dogs dancing, playing music and spinning records was just way too much. I felt sorry for the real dogs in this and I hope they were paid well in top quality kibble...but I doubt the director had that kind of money to spare...obviously he had to know it would not make him any cash as a completed film either. Low budget stuff can be fun....but this one was more of a mess than anything.

I for one really liked Karate Dog it had a good plot and story line... The acting wasn't top notch, it had somewhat known actors like Simon Rex(think Scary Movie) and Ron Lester( BillyBob -Varsity Blues)along side popular actors like Chevy Chase, Pat Morita, Jon Voight, Jaime Presley, & Lori Petti, remember Colar the computer with a voice? Yep that was her! (also known as Kit Keller in A League of Their Own). But it was still a very good family movie. Kids will surely love it, along with their moms and dads.

The whole Matrix movie thing is a little warn out though, especially the whole part with the dog bending over backwards & slow motion with flying specs, it is used way too much in movies now, along with John Voight standing on top of the Cage sign on top of the building yelling he's on top of the world with outstretched arms like he is in the Titanic movie, which is also used way too much in movies, but still as far as the entire film goes it was very funny, it cheered me up unlike most of today's movies. I for one didn't think it was total crap. Just maybe it lacked in some parts...

Thanks for reading my comment.