Mon chien, ce héros!

I took my son, 8, to see "Good Boy" on a recent visit to Seattle. He gave it a '10', which is pretty good as he was ranking it right up there with a visit to the zoo and the Pacific Science Center. I'd give it a '6', pleading a reticent adulthood, but add that it's far better than the anti-family detritus Disney's turning out these days.

The MGM movie tells the story of Owen, 12, and the dog he adopts, that turns out to be from outer space on a special mission. "Good Boy" is easy to take, even with the obligatory couple of flatulence jokes that earned the "PG" rating(my son of course thought them hilarious). It was funny, drew a few tears out of both of us, and ended happily. What more could you ask in a family film?

Something that totally drives me up the wall is when adults go into movies like this expecting "Gone With the Wind". It's a KIDS movie...the plot will be light, the acting maybe not so hot, and the jokes a bit lame at times. That is expected. You have to take each movie for what it is trying to achieve. This movie is trying to be a fun two hours without taking itself too seriously. And it does that very well. I am an educated movie-goer and I enjoyed this film very much. The actors chosen to provide the voices for the dogs were well selected and I am hoping to see more out of Liam Aiken in the next few years.

Cute dogs, cute laughs, cute movie.

I found Good Boy! while flipping through channels this afternoon and was pulled in to watch it all. There is not other word for the movie but cute--it is not great art, but a delightful little fantasy about dogs and people and their special bond.

The voice actors for the dogs are excellent, with a special shout out for Brittany Murphy's nervous Nelly--quite touching. There is not much computerized distortion of the dogs' appearance so the dogs are cute and natural. If you are going to make a movie about dogs, it is nice to see real dogs. Hubble is adorable!

The acting is a little stiff and formulaic from most characters, but Liam Aiken gives an amazingly natural and touching performance. I cared about this kid and Hubble the dog. I admit to a few tears at the end. Nice for the whole family--even my cat-person son liked this.

Good Boy

This is a movie for dog lovers. If you like dogs, than you most likely will like this movie. The dogs were great. They looked good. There seemed to be little to no CGI interference with the dogs. The human actors left a lot to be desired, but the movie really wasn't about them anyway. Dogs are from space. They were supposed to colonize Earth, but have instead become pets. The dogs from the home star get mad and want to take away the Earth dogs. That's the basic plot behind the movie. Good for kids and adults who like dogs. Dogs are cool animals and need more movies. Sure the movie was silly, but at least it had dogs in it.

I went to see this movie because I am a fan of Liam Akin's.

I wasn't expecting much out of the movie, though.

But the movie turned out to be better than I expected.

It had a few flavors of "Benji" and "The Cat From Outter Space" mixed into it.

A definite must-see for people who have children or nieces and nephews.