Max

I saw Max with my 10 year old sons. Absolutely awesome movie to see with your age 10 to 16 child. It is much more than a movie about a heroic dog. It is also a coming of age movie that has some deep dives into responsibility, relationships, and ethics. Oh, and it is a great adventure flick too.

The dog will hook your kids and get them past some early dialog. But once the movie gets going, hold onto your seats! Very exciting. Suffice it to say that the audience gave the movie a long round of applause as the credits rolled. And hopefully some of the life lessons will rub off on the kids...

I liked part of it, and was disappointed with another aspect of it. I liked the dogs, the "name" actors, and the overall, one-paragraph story. I had trouble with the script, the execution of the story, and some of the minor character actors.

I was also nervous about seeing a corny, ultra-patriotic political war message. That was surprisingly absent. Handled with subtlety, it was in very good taste. I was also nervous about the prospect of an overly sentimental dog story, one that might even be maudlin. tear-jerker (Sad is OK, but intentionally "pushing buttons" over and over just to create melodrama is tiresome). Needn't have worried - it was handled with a deft touch - subtle, yet moving. Good job with that.

The problem I had was the script, and thus the movement of the plot. It felt like some pieces were missing, somehow. Not fluid, not smooth. It was clunky and a bit clumsy - like a hastily made afternoon TV movie.

The girl, Carmen, was actually the best all-round kid here. Good actor - I totally bought her emotions, her dog training skills, and her overall motivations. The curl-haired guy, Chuy, was so annoying as a character - I couldn't tell if I was disliking the kid or the character. I suspect it was the character (so maybe that was good acting? Dunno).

I am a university teacher, and in my line of work this story would be great, but again, the script itself came off as a rough draft. A few more rewrites and 6 months of polishing would have made a big difference.

All in all - not bad. Probably family friendly, from 8 years old and up.

This is a fine dog movie and good for the family without foul language and sex. Movies like this are so important because they remind us of how important dogs and other fellow animals are to us and how many of our human lives they have saved. Throughout history we have used animals like dogs, horses - even pigeons - to aid us in wars. Many thousands have been killed or slaughtered. Some have been recognised as the heroes they are but all to often these dear and faithful friends have been regarded as "things" and not sentient beings with feelings and emotions, beings that give us unconditional love and obedience. There have been better dog movies made in the past but Max is good and worth watching. Max is also a tribute to war dogs generally and hopefully will open some minds to the close relationship that exists between man the animal and his other animal friends.

I just saw Max yesterday at a screening in Vancouver and I loved it. After having watched the trailer I came in with low expectations, the story didn't seem very interesting and I wondered what they could do with the simple story line but I was pleasantly surprised. The film is very heart warming and entertaining. It had some action in it but the setup is very simple.There are no fancy computer graphics just good people/actors and a dog that's hard not to fall in love with. Its a feel good movie that's lovely to watch with family. The acting was good, I would recommend seeing this movie and will probably watch it again sometime.

Max is a film following a dog whose owner was killed in battle and gets moved to stay with the family of his late owner. However, like people he suffered from PTSD and so he found it difficult to be around other people and trust anyone. And that was the aspect i loved about this film, seeing how the war affected this dog and how it affected his relationship with the people around him. They did a great job at capturing the emotions of this dog, and really showing how these events affect dogs in the same way they affect the soldiers. You really get to see how it affects him through his interactions with the various characters in the film, especially Justin; the brother of the deceased played by Josh Wiggins. The scenes where his and Max's relationship is being explored are definitely the highlights of the film and most of that is in the first third to half of the film. But i felt that the film wasted the perfect opportunity to really go in detail about how Max adjusts to trusting people other than Justin as he trusts Justin right from the beginning. After the first act, a lot of the character development was actually focused on Justin and some other life decisions he faced, now although some of this was interesting i felt that it lowered the importance of Max's transformation a little.

Where the biggest flaw with this movie lies is the plot, it is mostly fine for the first act or so but after that they bring in this side plot involving some secondary characters you don't want to really see. They begin to show up here and there and they were also useful for Max's transformation at one point. But then it just takes over the film in the last act and it turns into a completely different movie that really didn't fit the tone of the rest of the movie. It felt messy and turned into your generic good guy bad guy film where the family dog pitches in and helps out a little. During the entire third act, Max undergoes a pretty important change that i feel was rushed and not focused on when it was a big thing early in the film, and that kinda bugged me. How i would describe this film is, if you take the PTSD elements and all of the emotional family relationship stuff from American Sniper and get rid of the war moments and replace them with a generic young kid takes on the bad guys story you have this movie. So in the end, this film really captured my attention with depicting Max, his relationship with the people around him especially Justin, but it lost me with a sloppy, generic side plot that takes over a lot of the movie. - 4.5