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Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore
| Released |
4 August 2010 |
| Director |
Brad Peyton |
Starring
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Chris O'Donnell, Paul Rodriguez, Christina Applegate, James Marsden, Leslie Mann, Ray Liotta, Joe Pantoliano, Roger Moore, Bette Midler |
| Writer(s) |
Ron J. Friedman, Steve Bencich |
| Producer(s) |
Andrew Lazar, Polly Johnson |
| Origin |
United States |
| Running Time |
85 minutes |
| Genre |
Family, action, comedy |
| Rating |
G |
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Crap galore.
Yet another 3-D movie that Hollywood are gleefully cashing in on, Cats & Dogs; The Revenge of Kitty Galore opens in cinemas on August 4th. Around the country poor, hard done by parents or unfortunate aunties and uncles will be dragged to the cinema to endure 82 minutes of a movie that will probably keep the kids happy, and convince the adults to be more careful next time they offer a cinema trip as a day out. In addition you'll all have to pay an additional 2-3 euro for the "experience" of watching something in 3 dimensions. I'm all for embracing technology but honestly- there are roughly forty movies in 2010 released in 3-D. I’d guess that no more than a handful of these movies (at a push) utilise the technology available. The rest - well, the word 'gimmick' comes to mind. I should mention however, that the highlight of this cinema trip is actually a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes short starring Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote shown before the movie. This bursts onto the screen with a welcome vigour, and the 3D is beautiful and exciting. So maybe you should leave as soon as this is over, just try to convince the kids that the movie was cancelled.
I guess that's enough of a rant on the current 3-D craze, as I should tell you about how bad this movie is in itself. The actual plot of the movie is of course ridiculous in the extreme, but that's not something I have a particular problem with. After all, this is a movie aimed at kids, and looking at it from that angle, it's not so bad. The story centres around one Kitty Galore, an ex agent for the underground spy-cat organisation "MEOWS" ,who after an accident involving a vat of hair removal cream and a dog, was left as an unlovable hairless freak- with a thirst for revenge. From her secret location Kitty has developed a sound; "The Call of the Wild", which when unleashed upon the world will drive all dogs insane, and somehow lead to her taking over the world and ruling mankind.
Enter Diggs, a down and out cop with a chip on his shoulder (basically a happier Bruce Willis in canine form) who's been recruited by a similar dog outfit of high tech spies to team up buddy-style with Butch, an old no-nonsense agent who doesn't have time to deal with this kid’s disrespect of authority and tendency to cause trouble. The team meets Catherine, a beautiful and deadly agent of MEOWS who is after Seamus, a ghetto-style pigeon who knows too much, that needs to be protected from the crazy Kitty Galore.
With the title Revenge of Kitty Galore, one shouldn't be too surprised to learn that the movie is peppered -actually doused- with Bond movie references, and even stars Roger Moore in a small role voicing a feline spy named "Tab Lazenby"... While this in itself could have raised a chuckle, the jokes and asides continue with every scene and character, and it quickly becomes very tired. Even the opening credits have Pink's 'Get the Party Started' covered in typical belter-Bond style by Shirley Bassey. Though it's not just Bond that provides the "laughs" (sorry-groans) for the adults in the room. Pop culture references abound with a Hannibal Lector-style "Mr. Tinkles", a song from Robin Hood, Lethal Weapon, Men in Black, "buddy movies"....and the list continues. But they don't stop at just that in this hilarious pile of nonsense, us lucky viewers are treated to pun after pun and one cheesy animal joke after another...Is it really that funny that dogs sniff each others butts from time to time? Or that animals can talk and wear ties and use jetpacks? Please god, someone let this furry-CGI madness come to a halt.
What’s unfortunate about all of this is that if it was left as a movie aimed at and written for kids, it probably would have been fine, and bearing in mind kids possible enjoyment of the film, I’m not giving it 0 out of 100. But the continuous desperate attempts to reach the adult portion of the audience with jokes so badly written that I think I could do better mean that the well meaning and high-profile cast of Nick Nolte, Bette Midler, Christina Applegate and James Marsden have no hope of saving this.
- Eadaoin Browne |
