Show Dogs

The animal buddy family flicks are such a tired genre from the 1990s to the point where the latest attempts at this in the modern era are less than stellar but harmless (though that depends on the director). There are mostly harmless as long as you don't think about them too much with common factors such as lame jokes, terrible direction given to the actors, plot points that are rushed/come out of nowhere, poop gags, and silly physics being used. One of these directors guilty of this is Raja Gosnell, whose projects include Beverly Hills Chuahua, both live action Smurfs, and Scooby Doo. This brings us to his latest project in that aforementioned topic that apparently someone wanted, Show Dogs. The marketing displayed a sampling of the previously mentioned cliches and didn't look appealing. It was released as counter programming against Deadpool 2 to negative critical reviews. On that weekend, I followed my viewing of Life of the Party with a screening of Show Dogs to observe how much of the critical bashing it deserves and left it not as furious as I was with the former but I concur with the bad quality it has (it's not the worst movie of 2018 but it's effort made it a contender for that list).

Plot: In a world where humans and sentient dogs co-exist, an overconfident police dog teams up with an incompetent FBI agent to rescue a kidnapped baby panda by going undercover into a dog show. If you're wondering whether the humans understand what the dogs are communicating to one another, don't bother since it's never established. If you've seen any buddy cop movie, then you know exactly what's going to happen overall: One of the partners always works solo and doesn't work well with others, while the other is trying to find their footing and butts heads with the former. The script writing basically stuffs so many lame jokes and puns to the point where the dialog is pun-nominal (I'm not sorry for using that joke).

Essentially the storytelling focuses less on the mission and more on separate little antics that are barely developed such as bland romantic interests for the main leads, a running joke surrounding the dog partner being sensitive around people touching him in his genitals during inspection parts of the competition (which comes complete with a "zen" dream sequence, yes seriously), and pigeons who want to become police animals. Even the building of the bond between the undercover protagonists skips that moment where they learn to bond and just jumps to the human partner trusting the canine companion right out of nowhere. However, it manages to be consistent with its silly tone of not taking itself seriously and gave two moments where it garner some legitimate laughter. Overall the screenplay covers a lot of cliches, cluttered rushed plot points, and terrible dialog, though it earns a bit of credit for establishing the conflict early on instead of waiting for the last 30 minutes for it to arrive (cough cough Life of the Party).

Characters: The protagonists to focus Max (voiced by Ludacris) and Frank (Will Arnett). Max is a Rottweiler police canine whose macho attitude collides with Frank during their assignment. Ludacris is a somewhat mixed bag in this role as he isn't exactly terrible here but considering the material he's given, you kind of figured why he's cast as the masculine of the two leads. Frank is an FBI agent who's forced to go with Max on an undercover assignment to rescue a kidnapped panda. Will Arnett showed up on set to sleepwalk his way through his film and did his job like any professional would in such a bland character (not the worst thing he's been in since he was in the ninja turtles movies and he's on BoJack Horseman so he gets a pass here). Dishonorable mention goes Philippe (Stanley Tucci) for his over exaggerated French accent that's irritating to listen to and the scene where his animal body dabs.

CGI: One of the biggest offenders here is the quality of CGI. Keep in mind that a lot of it is used primarily with the dogs talking, which is odd to look at. A special offender among the canines comes in two parts: the first showing a dog standing on its back paws while dabbing with its front paws (no that's not a typo, it's in the trailer) and the second is when our lead is doing any kind of action stunts (notably in the beginning and the ending climax). The worst among them is the baby panda they are looking for as you can tell the animator don't have much experience with that animal. Honestly the CGI here are worse than that from Black Panther's PS2 looking ones (to those of you who have seen it, you can remember that from the climax rhinos and panther battle).

Overall Consensus: Show Dogs is another throwaway flick from the forgotten family animal buddy sub-genre that's plague with a bland script, horrible direction, wasted actors, shoddy storytelling, and terrible CGI. ⭑1/2💻 Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes PG

Reasons to watch it: You like any of the aforementioned actors. You enjoy silly family movies with animals talking in it. You like laughably bed CGI in animal buddy flicks. You don't mind jokes about genitalia and lame puns.

Reasons to avoid it: You dislike any of the aforementioned actors. You are annoyed with silly family movies with animals talking in it. You dislike laughably bed CGI in animal buddy flicks. You hate jokes about genitalia and lame puns.

Coming up next: May has been hit with a dud from the animal buddy family area with Raja Gosnell's below average Show Dogs!! Thankfully thing seem to be looking up for the next entry which takes us back to another rated R movie about motherhood, which looks leagues better than this (though that's not saying much). Tune in next time as Screening Spectacles will be taking a look at a different honest angle in that area with Tully!!!

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