Call me lame, but I am a sucker for these talking-animal movies that it seems to be the fashion to hate. It is also pretty much a given that we have to hate sequels, just for being sequels. I'm going against the grain here, but that's me.
The movie is downright cute. If people want to equate "cute" with "sappy," making it a bad thing, I respond that some movies are supposed to be an escape from reality.
This said, I don't like everything about it. I never liked John Travolta's James in the first place. He (the character, I mean) is a hypermacho creep who gives men in general a bad name. His character causes Lysette Anthony's Samantha to lose ground not for her acting, but for something that is not her fault: the writing that fails to answer the question, "So what does she see in him anyway?" Kirstie Alley's Mollie can be annoying too, with her overemotional dramatizing of everything, although the deliberately campy dream sequences redeem things just a touch. If we're going to be melodramatic, at least let's do it on purpose, right? Thank goodness for the children and the dogs to carry the movie. They are the reason for six of the seven stars I've given it. Olympia Dukakis as the now fair-minded, formerly buttinsky grandma, accounts for the seventh.
The interplay between the snobby purebred and the streetwise mutt is hysterically funny. "Doggy snacks" to the trainers, who were able to get the dogs to behave on cue with the perfect gestures and facial expressions. More doggy snacks to Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton, the canine voices. David Gallagher and Tabitha Lupien are stellar as Mikey and Julie, and deliver performances as well as or better than anyone can expect at their ages.
As for the writing, it isn't all bad. "I never liked this haircut," says Daphne the spoiled poodle. "My butt is freezing!"
The movie is downright cute. If people want to equate "cute" with "sappy," making it a bad thing, I respond that some movies are supposed to be an escape from reality.
This said, I don't like everything about it. I never liked John Travolta's James in the first place. He (the character, I mean) is a hypermacho creep who gives men in general a bad name. His character causes Lysette Anthony's Samantha to lose ground not for her acting, but for something that is not her fault: the writing that fails to answer the question, "So what does she see in him anyway?" Kirstie Alley's Mollie can be annoying too, with her overemotional dramatizing of everything, although the deliberately campy dream sequences redeem things just a touch. If we're going to be melodramatic, at least let's do it on purpose, right? Thank goodness for the children and the dogs to carry the movie. They are the reason for six of the seven stars I've given it. Olympia Dukakis as the now fair-minded, formerly buttinsky grandma, accounts for the seventh.
The interplay between the snobby purebred and the streetwise mutt is hysterically funny. "Doggy snacks" to the trainers, who were able to get the dogs to behave on cue with the perfect gestures and facial expressions. More doggy snacks to Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton, the canine voices. David Gallagher and Tabitha Lupien are stellar as Mikey and Julie, and deliver performances as well as or better than anyone can expect at their ages.
As for the writing, it isn't all bad. "I never liked this haircut," says Daphne the spoiled poodle. "My butt is freezing!"