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All-Reviews.com Movie/Video Review
Snow Dogs
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  out of 4
| *Also starring: | Jean-Michel Pare, Sisqo, Nichelle Nichols, M. Emmet Walsh, Joanna Bacalso, Brian Doyle-Murray, Graham Greene, Michael Bolton, Jim Belushi |
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Review by Harvey Karten
No Rating Supplied
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In the animated feature "Jimmy Neutron," one of the kids,
liberated from his parents, gleefully states that now "I can pee in
the shower." The movie got a G rating. In "Snow Dogs," one of
the eponymous characters actually urinates against a tree.
Close up. The movie got a PG rating. In fairness that scene,
which attempts to compete with similar ones in "Not Another
Teen Movie" but comes up short, is not the only bit of humor that
would not have passed the kiddie censors thirty years ago. Near
the beginning of the story, the cousin of Miami dentist Ted
Brooks (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), Rupert (Sisqo), is about to see Ted
off to Alaska and suggests that he might be able to get some
Nananookie! Other than that line, there isn't a heck of a lot in
"Snow Dogs" for adults, no lines that might go over the heads of
the target audience. But then you expect that from the director of
"The Flintstones" and its lame sequel "The Flintstones in Viva
Rock Vegas." Like "Viva Rock," most of "Snow Dogs" is one big
cliche, featuring a plethora of pratfalls by Mr. Gooding--who's in
virtually every scene, capitalizing on the famous screams he
gave on the bus full of Lucys, though he's in considerably more
danger here. About to fall from a precipe, he's saved by--what
else?--the title characters again, led by the indomitable alpha
canine, Demon.
There's little demonic about the story, in which director Brian
Levant, utilizes a screenplay written by a committee and inspired
by Gary Paulsen's book "Winterdance: The Fine Madness of
Running the Iditarod" (about Paulsen's true experience in an
Alaskan dogsled race covering considerably more distance than
the Olympic runners). Its appropriately fast pace turns from time
to time to sentimentality--giving kids the message that it's OK if
you're adopted--and centers on dentist Ted, who runs as thriving
a practice in Miami as Dr. T. ran in Beverly Hills or Steve Martin
on his turf. When Ted finds out that his real mother has
beqeathed to him her ample canine possessions in Alaska,
leaving one of her former boy friends, Thunder Jack (James
Coburn) "an outhouse with all its contents," he is takes off for a
tiny Alaskan village with a one-eyed pilot, George (M. Emmett
Walsh)--who reads the will to the entire community in the local
tavern. About to sell all the Huskies and an Australian Sheepdog
to the conniving Thunder Jack, he becomes attached to his best
friends and is determined o learn how to mush and to help
Thunder Jack--who is more than e originally says he is--in the
annual dogsled competition.
With the assistance of some computer generation that allows
these well-trained quadrapeds anthropomorphically to wink, to
smile, and to batter eyes flirtatiously, the two men enter the race
only to learn from their pratfalls.
All children love dogs and while they may pester their parents to
buy them Alaskan Huskies or Malamutes or maybe even
Australian sheepdogs, Mr. Levant discourages this by pointing
out that these furry creatures need more exercise than they can
get pacing a Manhattan studio. The movie, with a romance
tossed in and some stunning scenery on location in the Calgary
area of Canada's Alberta province, is good clean fun (though
short on any sort of wit that Oscar Wilde might recognize),
delightfully superficial, and highlights Mr. Gooding as a man who
can play a serious American hero ("Men of Honor") and a comic
of considerable talent with equal aplomb. Nebraska born James
Coburn has lots of fun as well.
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
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