Review of “Hotel For Dogs”
So, never work with children and animals, eh? First time feature director Thor Freudenthal doesn’t seem to mind – putting his background in visual effects on the Stuart Little mouse movies to good use in this family friendly, cute and cuddly tale of dogs and teens.
Andi (Emma Roberts) and her younger brother Bruce (Jake Austin) are Hollywood street kids – you know; happy, smiley and somehow terribly middle-class and white despite the fact that they are orphaned, scamming pawn dealers for cash, and living with truly loathsome foster parents called The Scudders who padlock the larder. Andi and Bruce’s one link to an undisclosed past as a happy family is their scruffy dog Friday, and it’s the hungry little canine who gets them into all kinds of trouble – leading them down alleys and lanes and finally into an abandoned city hotel in search of food. There they find a couple more dogs and a treasure trove of discarded objects conveniently left behind for Bruce, an amateur inventor in the Professor Branestawm mould. With the help of new teen pals Dave (Johnny Simmons) and Heather (Kyla Pratt) – who work in a doggie pet shop – the four friends soon transform the building into a five star pleasure playground for pooches, complete with food dispensers, exercise machines and poop disposal units. As more and more dogs find their way to the hotel, the kids clash with the dastardly members of the Animal Control Office – a collection of clownish oafs with dog-catching poles and the keys to the pound. Standing between the children and the authorities is Bernie (Don Cheadle) a good natured social services officer who is looking for a decent home for Andi and Bruce and who provides the balanced moral centre of the film. (He gets the “what you did was wrong, but we forgive you ‘cos you’re good” speech.)
It’s all good hearted formulaic saccharine – very much in the Nickelodeon tradition - and aimed at the 7-14 age group. The humans in the film are largely upstaged by the antics of the dogs and the wonderfully imaginative world created for them in the hotel. Lisa Cudrow and Kevin Dillon have some fun as the obnoxious Scudders, but most of the characters are two dimensional – only there to help show off some memorable performances by the real stars – Friday and his furry friends.
Rating:
Leave a Reply