Lazy Cats & Dogs Sequel a Rabid Mongrel
The world as we know it is in grave peril. Evil, and hairless, pussycat Kitty Galore (voiced by Bette Midler) is on the verge of her greatest creation that will change the face of the planet forever. With less than 24 hours to stop her, the war between cat and dog must be put to rest so this threat can be averted. But time is running out, and old grudges die hard, and with the clock ticking down to doom its up to two fearless canines, Butch (voiced by Nick Nolte) and Diggs (voiced by James Marsden), and one cagy feline, Catherine (voiced by Christina Applegate), to put their differences aside and ultimately save the day.
Spying is for the dogs in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore © Warner Bros.
The original Cats & Dogs came out in the summer of 2001 and was a surprise box office hit making just over $93-million domestically. It was also one of the very first movies I ever reviewed for Moviefreak, and while I didn’t personally care for it all that much it was hardly a disaster, the kids in the audience enjoying themselves to such a great extent I felt more or less compelled to give it a halfhearted recommendation.
Nine years after the fact I feel nowhere near the same sort of forgiving mood in regards to the long in coming sequel Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Other than a few reasonably inspired in-jokes that will fly way over the head of the target audience and will only appeal to adults who will have no desire to attend, this 3D CGI-heavy epic is an unmitigated disaster. Sadly, like Garfield and Alvin and the Chipmunks before it the film will also probably be hit, the kids in my preview audience once again enjoying themselves thoroughly while I sat there in silence praying it would mercifully come to an end.
In other words, I really didn’t like it. The script is even more nonsensical than the original’s was, the comedy is abhorrent and action is so frenzied and chaotic it’s almost unwatchable. The 3D conversion, much like it was on Clash of the Titans, is beyond terrible, and anyone spending the extra dollars to see it this way is going to feel about ten thousand times more ripped off than those who do not. The final product is a headache inducing mess that left me feeling pummeled beyond repair, and by the time it was over I was almost a tiny bit surprised I’d managed to survive the experience of watching it.
So, the vocal cast does try what they can, and there are a couple of nice touches here and there I did admittedly chuckle over (Roger Moore voices the cat commander, a Mr. Tab Lazenby, while Nolte’s Butch gets to lament how he’s too old for this poop to a Lethal Weapon-like guitar riff). There just isn’t enough of them, and even an appearance by the first film’s villain Mr. Tinkles (still hilariously voiced by Sean Hayes) in full Silence of the Lambs regalia doesn’t work near well enough to make sitting through the whole thing close to worthwhile.
I get why Warner Bros. returned to this particular well. In the wake of the aforementioned adventures of Alvin, Simon and Theodore and coupled with the bizarre popularity of Beverly Hills Chihuahua greenlighting this sequel was probably a pretty easy decision. But just because that’s so doesn’t make it a good one, and even though kids will probably be entertained the rest of us will be wishing Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore had been euthanized at the scripting stage.
Film Rating: ê1/2 (out of 4)
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