Disney’s Chihuahua a Bad Dog
If I were six, maybe even seven, I think I would have adored Walt Disney Picture’s talking dog comedy Beverly Hills Chihuahua. It has lots of adorable animals (mostly of the canine variety, naturally) running around for 90-minutes doing cute things and getting into mischief while talking to one another as if they were just like the ultra cutesy and caring human beings who surround them.
Piper Perabo and Jamie Lee Curtis have no excuses in Walt Disney Pictures' Beverly Hills Chihuahua
All of which would have made the movie perfect… if I were six.
Truth of the matter? I’m in my thirties, and watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua is as close to nails on a chalkboard as I’ll probably get. This is one of those films, based on the trailers alone, you could almost presuppose an urgent need to run away from it screaming. While nothing actually contained within is near as horrendous or as painful as that precognition there’s also just as much not in the way of sublime (or even partially entertaining) redemption, either, so please don’t hold your breath praying for some.
In other words, Babe it is not. Heck, it’s not even “Mister Ed,” the script by Analisa LaBianco and Jeffrey Bushell about seven steps below the usual sitcom standards for this sort of thing. Worse, it trades in so many Hispanic stereotypes I even started to wonder how much they had to pay Latino stars like Andy Garcia, George Lopez, Edward James Olmos and Cheech Marin to voice it.
The movie follows a pampered California Chihuahua named Chloe (Drew Barrymore) who gets lost by her babysitter Rachel (Piper Perabo), the niece of trusting cosmetics magnet Vivian (Jamie Lee Curtis), during an unauthorized trip to Mexico. Attempting to get back to civilization, the pampered pup is protected by former police dog Delgado (Garcia) while her wannabe boyfriend Papi (Lopez) joins his owner Sam (Manolo Cardona) south of the border to aid Rachel in her desperate search.
Silly isn’t the right word for all of this. Dumb, however, comes to mind, as do unfunny, ponderous and irritating. While I didn’t hate it, I can’t say I enjoyed my time sitting in the theater, my ticking watch my only solace as I kept hoping I wouldn’t have to endure it any longer then absolutely necessary.
After Home Alone 3, Scooby-Doo and Yours, Mine and Ours you’d think that director Raja Gosnell would learn his lesson to stay away from family-friendly fare but no, here he is back once again to beat adults over the head with the mallet of extreme irritation. Granted, what can you say about a guy whose only halfway decent effort is the Barrymore-starring 1999 comedy Never Been Kissed? Not too much, his work here not exactly going to change my opinion of either the guy’s taste or his minimal talent.
Be all this as it may, I must admit that the younger kids in the audience absolutely adored this film. Better, for all its obnoxiousness and supreme ridiculousness it seldom resorts to bathroom humor to try and find its laughs, something I find both commendable and unanticipated both at the same time.
For my part, there was one moment I truly did like. Not to ruin it, but the whole bit concerns a packrat, an iguana, a small frightened child and a gigantic piñata in the shape of a donkey. It’s a brief gag, 15 second maybe, but it is also an effective one, and while I won’t spoil it let’s just say the scene is about as inventive and humorous as any sight gag I’ve seen this year.
Too bad the rest of Beverly Hills Chihuahua is nothing special because if Gosnell and company had put even a tenth of the effort required to pull that one joke off into the rest of the picture I might have had something interesting to talk about. Instead, all I can really do is leave this film for the dogs and curl up for nap, all my barking not going to change this one’s potential paw print on the box office one tiny bit.
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
Additional Links:
- Beverly Hills Chihuahua Theatrical Trailer
