Sometimes, I thought there were two Robin Williams. There was the one who made "Aladdin," "Hook" and "Mrs. Doubtfire," and one who made "Awakenings," "Bicentennial Man" and "Man of the Year." This movie may belong to the latter one. "Old Dogs" stars Robin Williams and John Travolta who play two entrepreneurs in the middle of a large business deal, but then Williams discovers he has two kids from a wild fling Travolta created a few years earlier. Promising the mother to take care of the kids for two weeks very obviously wrecks their deal, their lives and their bank accounts. It's a plot device we've seen several times before done better in several other movies like "Jungle 2 Jungle" and it ends pretty much the exact same way it always has with the sudden father giving it all up for a life with the kids. There's no new spin, no real jokes and no credibility. In fact, the set-ups to the jokes are predictable. When Williams and Travolta talk about the after-effects of their medications, you can predict they're all going to be mixed up. What the movie does have is a stellar case of celebrity cameos from Seth Green, Lori Loughlin, Kelly Preston, Dax Shepard, Luis Guzman, Matt Dillon, Justin Long and Ann-Margret. Unfortunately, the cartoonish gags aren't very funny, and the plot isn't believable. At no point does Williams even come close to acting like a father and placing some boundaries on his kids to save himself some grief. However, the movie did do well enough to be called successful so apparently it has enough appeal to kids if not to parents.
Review of Old Dogs
