Posted: 07/08/2001

Cats & Dogs

(2001)

by Hank Yuloff

The battle is on between the Felines and the Canines… Who will you root for?

In past reviews I have been critical whenever I saw that the writer and director position were handled by first timers. It seems that it takes a while to learn your craft and if you are working with two newcomers, it is going to be a bit hard to come up with a winner.

Well, it seems that a couple of “newbies” have combined to put together a winner if you are looking for a movie that you can take your kids or your nephews and nieces and everyone will have a good time. Cats & Dogs is as enjoyable a kids film as you are likely to see.

The story revolves around the endless struggle for the devoted affection given by the human species to their pets. In Cats & Dogs, Professor Brody (Jeff Goldblum) is on the verge of creating a vaccination that will take away all human allergies to dogs, making them the preferred pet. The World Dog Council is protecting his work from the plying paws of the cat world. In this case, the dogs seem to be better organized, (they are pack animals, after all) whereas the cats seem to be led by the power-hungry Mr. Tinkles (Sean Hays from Will & Grace) who wants nothing less than world domination. Cats & Dogs is James Bondian espionage with humans totally unaware of what is going on under their noses. Both Felines and Canines feel we are an inferior race, but we seem to have a big advantage because of that opposable thumb thing.

Writers John Requa and Glenn Ficarra managed to use all of the stereotypical things that would be funny about our 4-legged friends and make them funny while director Lawrence Guterman kept up the pacing to keep the attention of the little ones. There are a couple of scary moments for the very little ones who may look at your Siamese cats in a different way, but there is enough to keep the kids laughing a lot and the adults generally amused by the adult humor.

The real heroes in this film are the special effects crew which keeps the animals from looking like Mr. Ed trying to eat peanut butter while incorporating a lot of puppets for a real cartoon bad guy effect shot in the real world.

I’d like to applaud Village Roadshow pictures for Cats & Dogs, but for the solid flicks they have turned out in the past 3 years. Though there are 7 people given producer credit for this film, I counted 16 films under Executive Producer Bruce Berman’s credit list including Swordfish, Miss Congeniality, The Matrix, Analyze This, Saving Silverman, Deep Blue Sea, and Three Kings. Village Roadshow is doing a good job at entertaining its audiences.

A final note from my soapbox… The other night I watched Titan AE for the first time and spent a lot of my time trying to figure out who the voices of the characters were. The same thing happened with Cats & Dogs.

HEY PRODUCERS: Could you please list the fine acting talents behind the cartoon and animal voices in the opening credits so we don’t spend an hour trying to figure out that the two sultry voices I was listening to were Drew Barrymore (Titan AE) and Susan Sarandon (Cats & Dogs)? I picked out Jon Lovitz, Joe Pantoliano, and Alec Baldwin pretty easily, but Michael Clarke Duncan and Tobey Maguire (the hero of this epic) were familiar voices not easily coming to mind and it took away from my enjoyment of the film. ‘Nuf Said!

Cats & Dogs: bring the kiddies with a big box of popcorn and have a good time!

Hank Yuloff is an advertising executive living in the San Fernando Valley surrounded by his own four pussies.

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