Here’s the good news: The new family comedy Hotel for Dogs might just be one the most refreshingly colorblind kid flicks I’ve ever seen. Not only do you have interracial teen romances and a child of interracial parents as one of the secondary protagonists, you have an African American father figure embracing two Caucasian orphans with as much love and adoration as if they were his very own.

Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin in DreamWorks Pictures' Hotel for Dogs

It’s a wonderful sight, one that can’t help but make you smile and get tingly warm fuzzy feelings about the beautiful moral messages the target audience is almost subliminally gobbling up. The film takes the idea of a home for wayward canines of all shapes, sizes, species and backgrounds and smartly uses it as a family metaphor impossible not to respect.

Unfortunately, the rest of the picture is an outright disaster on just about every level. The saga of two orphans, Andi (Emma Roberts) and Bruce (Jake T. Austin), who unwittingly stumble upon a vacant hotel and turn it into a shelter for every dog they can find, this movie wastes so many comically appealing opportunities at a certain point I just stopped trying to count them all.

In other words, it isn't very good. Director Thor Freudenthal (a one-time visual conceptual artist on both Stuart Little movies making his debut) and his cadre of writers have transformed Lois Duncan’s charming and popular book into an absolute abomination. Nothing stands out or sparks the imagination, so much of the goings-on feeling like ideas cobbled together from other, better pictures like the original Benji, Lassie, The Parent Trap, The Borrowers, Mousehunt as well as the aforementioned Stuart Little.

Worse than all of that, it takes extremely talented actors like Don Cheadle and Lisa Kudrow and strips them of all their charisma and charm. Trying to wallow their way through this sideshow both of them look bored and disinterested, and by the time it was over I could almost imagine I heard each of them mutter under their breath just how happy they were to finally be done with it.

I will say that I can’t help but feel young Roberts is destined to be a star. Julia’s niece hasn’t exactly done a great job picking projects (remember Nancy Drew?) but that doesn’t make her any less magnetic and personable. She is a strikingly adorable young lady, and as she continues to grow as an actor I hope she’s going to find that one Mean Girls or The Professional-like project that’s going to take her out of the shadow of obscurity and into the limelight of stardom she blissfully deserves. 

Part of me thinks young children will still be entertained by this mess, but anyone over the age of eight will probably start to squirm in their seat in boredom fairly quickly. At its best, this picture makes Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua look like one of the greatest canine comedies ever put to film. For those not reading between the lines, this isn’t a compliment, Hotel for Dogs a mongrel of movie someone should compassionately euthanize.

Film Rating: ê1/2 (out of 4)

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