O Menino e seu Cachorro

First off... To the guy who said that this movie doesn't say anything.. Please try to use more than 1 percent of your brain cells next time you analyze a movie. To those who think that the writer of this story, Harlan Ellison, intended on being anti woman in his creation of the final scene, you need to re-examine the story's real meaning. The movie (and especially the original story) is making a strong statement about the meaning of love. Love is honest. Love is survival. Vic probably makes the most mature decision in his entire life by choosing the dog over the woman. He needed to choose the dog over all else in order to have a future in that harshest of all worlds. He chooses life over temporary sexual pleasure. Vic was never in love with Quilla June. In the world of "A Boy and His Dog" a Vic and Quilla June relationship was destined to fail for many obvious reasons.

Nevertheless, the original story does a much better job of exploring Vic's ambivalence in making the final decision. It is true that Ellison's original novella is a masterpiece. Thanks for listening.

Here's a ridiculous movie that never aspires, so it wallows in self-pity.

The best way to describe this is an unimaginative version of 'Mad Max' and '1984'. Sadly, this doesn't break any new ground for our imagination. The only novel element is the talking dog which, by now, isn't amazing aside from his 'Lethal Weapon'-esque conversations with Don Johnson.

Final Analysis = = Cinematic Dud

A lot of fans of 1970s SF movies love 'A Boy And His Dog'. I don't. But I don't hate it either. I have read many stories by Harlan Ellison, but not the novella which inspired this (though I have read the prequel 'Eggsucker') so I can't say whether the fault is in the source material or L.Q. Jones' adaptation. Jones, an excellent character actor probably best known for his work with Sam Peckinpah, previously scripted the underrated horror movie 'The Brotherhood Of Satan', and also directed this time around. There's nothing really bad about his work here, but it ultimately fails to satisfy, and one can't help but feel it would have made a better short than a full length movie. Future 80s TV heartthrob Don Johnson is actually pretty good as "the boy" Vic, and Tim McIntire is even better as the voice of Blood. The cast also includes the late Jason Robards ('Magnolia') who had acted alongside Jones in a couple of Peckinpah movies, and Alvy Moore ('Green Acres'), an old friend of Jones' who was also in 'Brotherhood Of Satan'. Many people regard this in some ways as an inspiration for 'Mad Max'. George Miller claims he wasn't aware of 'A Boy And His Dog' until after he made the first movie in the series, and I can't see any reason to doubt him. The post-apocalyptic background was already a regular theme in SF stories even if it wasn't all that common in SF movies, and let's face it the movies have a lot more differences than similarities, but it's worth mentioning just the same. There were several SF movies made in the 1970s that deserve more attention. 'A Boy And His Dog' is one of them, but it still doesn't alter the fact that it is far from a great movie, and not without some dull patches. Even so, it is still worth watching, especially if you want to see what the decade had to offer other than 'Star Wars'.

Vic and his telepathically talking sheep dog, Blood, travel post-apocalyptic Arizona. Besides scavenging for food and sex, this movie features old, terrible porn clips, evil Amish looking people with clown makeup and possibly the greatest pun in movie history. Blood provides hilarious commentary to all Vic's endeavors, his comments while Vic and a girl he finds have sex are particularly entertaining. At parts, this movie gets so strange you can't do anything but laugh at it, which is definitely not a bad thing! A Boy and His Dog is not something that will ever be universally popular, but it is a great movie for late nights and all nerds. A classic piece of science fiction.

In the year 2024 Earth has become a barren desert due to WW4. Vic is a solo, a loner who walks around in search of food and sex. He is accompanied by his telepathic dog, Blood, who uses his senses to sniff out women and food. When Blood sniffs out Susanne it leads to a terrifying journey to the underground where Vic finds himself trapped for sinister means.

This is a very basic that sticks to post-apocalypse movie rules - desert conditions, everyone searching for basic needs, loner warrior etc. The story seems to be leading nowhere but then picks up on the story of Susanne and begins treading towards the underground scenes. The main driver of the first half of the film is the relationship between Vic and Blood. Once the film moves underground, Blood is left behind and the film stutters a bit because of him being out of it. However once the story picks up again, Johnson can almost carry it. And the ending - it's not a shock or a twist but it's a quite whimsical end in a story that is about friendship.

Johnson is not too bad here, he's slagged off on these pages, but considering he's acting to a dog he does really well. It's almost like acting in a blue screen I suppose, having to respond to lines that aren't being spoken. He shows the extent of his talents when he goes underground but he's good on the surface. Composer Tim McIntire is good as Blood, but maybe makes him a little too unlikeable early on. The only other performance of interest is Jason Robards as the head of the underground committee.

Overall this is a little oddity, but it's not a brilliant film. The underground scenes are good in that they display greater imagination than those on the surface. It lacks pace for the most and really doesn't have anything to say but it's an interesting film.

More than anything else, I think this is one of those films that movie-snobs talk about in pubs because they know few people will have seen it! Forget them - it's worth seeing once.