Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore

82 Minutes

So the talking secret agent dog and the talking secret agent cat have teamed up to save the world from the evil and repugnant Kitty Galore. Ignoring her species’ age-old hatred of canines, the sensible yet brilliant super spy Catherine (Christina Applegate) leads the affable yet reckless ex-police dog Diggs (James Marsden) to her compatriots’ hidden fortress. Said fortress is accessed via a series of hidden tubes throughout the city. The cat slides down but the dog, being five times larger than his feline friend, winds up getting stuck. And since he just so happens to be a character in Brad Peyton’s eminently mediocre Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, a film aimed squarely at the youngest and least discernible members of the movie-going audience, the dog gets wedged with his rear-end protruding from the tube, tail wagging uselessly. Comedy gold. Sitting there in the audience, I was able to guess the next inevitable line of dialogue and say it to myself well before it came out of the speakers: “Uhh…little help, here?” Hahaha! And the crowd goes wild.

A typical line in a typical scene in a typically typical kids’ film, it sums up everything about this movie that was so staggeringly, blaringly obvious. Of course the dog would get stuck with his butt hanging out of the tube, of course he would. And of course he would say what he said, because why wouldn’t he? It was only the most generic thing he could possibly say in that situation. The entire movie was like this. On a scene-by-scene and a line-by-line basis, nothing about Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore was surprising or challenging or unique. Every single choice made was the easiest, safest choice imaginable. It was clear that neither Peyton nor screenwriters Ron J. Friedman and Steve Bencich had any interest in producing anything more than a piece of cheap, disposable product.

Let’s start with the premise. Nominally a sequel to 2001′s Cats & Dogs, the film lifts its main conceit almost directly from the Toy Story films. Whenever human beings aren’t looking, animals have secret lives. Not only can they talk, but they can wear glasses, use tools, build doomsday devices and formulate meticulously detailed schemes for world domination. Basically a pastiche of the Bond franchise, in the world of Cats and Dogs there are two secret agencies: DOG and MEOW. I am sure that these acronyms stand for something, but if so, I missed it. Anyway, Kitty Galore (Bette Midler), an ex-MEOW agent, is bent on destroying the world’s population of canines by broadcasting a frequency designed to drive them insane. When the human population suddenly find their pets acting like rabies-cases, they will have no choice but to lock then all up in kennels. This is something that Diggs, the hero of our story, simply cannot let happen. He’s been inside before, and darn it! He. Will. Not. Go. Back. So Diggs and Catherine team up with stool-pigeon pigeon Seamus (Katt Williams) and crusty old dog Butch (Nick Nolte) to save the day.

There’s a lot of riffing on Bond archetypes, as well as a number of other film franchises the younger members of the audience would have no way of understanding. Some of the others I caught were Driving Miss Daisy, Braveheart, Superman and The Godfather. The most prominently displayed reference was to that much beloved children’s classic, The Silence of the Lambs. When the team is having trouble tracking down Galore’s hideout, they turn to Mr. Tinkles (Sean Hayes), apparently the villain from the last film. Now incarcerated underneath Alcatraz, lovable, adorable old Mr. Tinkles is trussed up like Hannibal Lecter in that scene where he’s strapped to the gurney. Awwwwww!

Long story short: they save the day. But here’s the thing, though: this is not a good film. It is not original, it is not fun, it is not clever or funny or smart. But the crowd I saw it with? Loved it. They loved it! There were at least two instances of spontaneous adult applause during the movie. When Butch busts out his jet pack and starts flying though the city, a little boy sitting behind me exclaimed, “This is such a good movie!” I don’t know, maybe these were all shills paid by Warner Brothers to influence the opinions of the critics sitting amongst them. But I don’t think so. I think they really liked it. Which leaves me with the unenviable task of panning a movie that will sure to be a hit with the general public. It’s a movie that is not bad in the way that, say, an M. Night Shyamalan movie is bad. It is bad in the way a McDonald’s Happy Meal is bad – it is bland, unappetizing pabulum that nevertheless is sure to appeal to a broad audience of consumers.

If you are old enough to read this review, I urge you not to see this movie. If you have any children or nieces or nephews begging you to take them to see it, I urge you to pretend you’ve suddenly forgotten how to speak English or gone blind or something. They’ll believe it – kids are dumb like that.

by Shannon Gramas