Show Dogs

I saw a review that summarized it as Miss Congeniality, but with dogs, and not funny. And that’s right. But it also sells short how the only way Will Arnett could phone it in any more would be to read his lines on an actual phone call. Or how Natasha Lyonne is acting like she’s fulfilling a favor for the mafia. Or how the jokes are below the scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel awfulness of Illumination animated movies. Or how I’ve put more effort into this review than the writers did into developing characters or an engaging plot. Or the CGI that looks like it was developed on an Atari Jaguar. Will your kids like it? Sure, it has cops and talking animals. But it’s empty calories. This movie will have zero resonance in their minds. Movies like Wall*E, or The Goonies, or even a Phineas & Ferb cartoon, will entertain with wit and charm, and sneak in intelligent lessons that they’ll carry with them. This makes Space Jam look like Who Framed Roger Rabbit. If your child tries to pull this up on Netflix, throw away the remote, and burn the trash can.