Marmaduke

When I was a kid I used to watch ‘Marmaduke’ on Saturday morning cartoons. This film adaptation is not as entertaining as the former, but nevertheless kids should have a frolicking time with it. Marmaduke is not meant to entertain adults, it’s for children who are 7-10 years old or even tweens at 12-14. So any grown men and women who go to see this film need to understand that the gags and dance moves from these dogs are meant for infants. If you enjoy kids movies, more power to you.

The plot. A suburban family moves to a new neighborhood with their large yet lovable Great Dane, who has a tendency to wreak havoc in his own oblivious way.

This is one of those few cat and dog movies where humans take a back seat to them. I would say it is 80% animals 20% humans. There is hardly any acting from real people in this film, which is why you can’t really knock the acting because there barely is any. Most of the work comes from the voices of Owen Wilson, Emma Stone, George Lopez and Kiefer Sutherland. I thought Owen fit the personality of the star dog perfectly. Lopez I think is always hilarious with the stereotypical Mexican accent as Marmaduke’s cat friend.

The situational comedy in the movie is modestly fun and you can tell director Tom Dey (“Failure to Launch”) makes something of an effort to make it likable. Overall, Marmaduke is what it is – a project using a familiar American brand name to make some money from it. Did it work? Not enough for me to tell you to run to the theater to see it. This is definitely a DVD property.