Released: 03/10/06

Viewed: 4:00pm 03/010/06

Starring: Tim Allen, Robert Downey Jr., Kristen Davis, Danny Glover, Spencer Breslin, Zena Grey , Jane Curtin

Directed by: Brian Robbins

Disney Official Site of the movie

In the 1950's through 1970's Disney were a major powerhouse in the American box office. At some point in the 90's they began a big push towards remakes of their cherished classics. They still of course make original films but often rely on updated more popular properties to hit big with the public. And we're not even talking about cartoons. This is there live action stuff. The kind of stuff your parents watched when they were kids. The Love Bug, The Nutty Professor, Freaky Friday The Parent Trap. Hell some of your grandparents probably watched the original Dr. Doolittle when they were kids.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Good stories are good stories and sometimes and update, remake, or sequel can add something to the story. The remake of the Nutty Professor is a brilliant piece of modern comedy, and simply based on the idea of the original. But not all of them are home runs, even though the bad ones somehow still become monetarily successful. I have no idea how. I don't know anyone that saw Flubber. And even though it's been out less than a week, I know no one that's seen The Shaggy Dog.

In the long line of Disney updates The Shaggy Dog is very middle of the road. It will make a lot of money, but not a ton. It has a good spirit to it with good jokes and site gags, but not a ton. It's the kind of movie I'd like to recommend, but not a ton.

Tim Allen is Dave Douglas a lawyer representing a large company accused of animal testing in a case against a wrongly accused animal rights activist. Dave puts his job first and his family second. His children betray him, his wife feels neglected, and get this? he hates dogs. And you feel sorry for him because you know as he's promising his wife he won't miss their anniversary dinner in two days, you KNOW he's going to show up as a dog.

When a 400-year-old dog from Tibet (I crap you not) is taken in by his attention-starved family Dave freaks out and ends up getting bitten by the magical beast. After that he starts transforming and his priorities shift to finding out what ?s really going on in that company with the animal testing.

It's a nice story. A little weird with the ancient dog, especially when you see the dog meditating, but it works. Kids eat this stuff up.

Tim Allen does a good job even as he's forced to go through the clich?d moves. Luckily they breeze through those in about 3 minutes. He wakes up at the foot of the bead, chases a loose belt on his robe (chasing his "tail"), takes a shower and shakes dry, drives with his head out the window. I'm not sure if it ever really came up and was wisely squashed, but I'm happy to report there was no man to man or man to animal ass sniffing. There was some animal to man ass sniffing but I found it to be very tasteful.

He's very good with the voice over work as well, that's where he has some of his funnier lines. I have to say though ? I'm so glad they didn't do the talking animal thing. As an animal Dave does talk to the animals, but it's always a one sided conversation. You never hear the voice of the other animals. A brilliant move, I say.

I admit that I'm a Tim Allen fan. Don't look at me like that. I know he does the lame family movies like The Santa Clause and Christmas with the Cranks but he's also done movies like Galaxy Quest, Who is Cletus Tout?, and Big Trouble which show a completely different side to the kid of work he could be doing. Galaxy Quest in particular is one of the smartest satires in the past 10 years. So yeah, Tim Allen gets a lot of respect from me.

But I enjoyed the whole cast, I mean this isn't really what you'd call a challenge, but the material could fall flat in weaker hands. The Douglas family (Kristen Davis, Spencer Breslin, Zena Grey) are all great together. Spencer has been the go to cute kid for the past few years and to be honest I'm surprised he hasn't grown out of it. He's going to shoot up a foot in the next year, loose the baby fat and get zits. Then he'll get hooked on the crank. I'm a little worried about Kristen Davis though. She's come out of the post Sex and the City gate with two kids movies. I don't know? it might just be me but I expect more substance and less fluff from someone as talented (hot) as her.

The most fun part was the one of the evil corporate executive played by Robert Downey Jr.. He gets to act crazy, yell at people, bark at other people, and look cool doing it. And you could tell he was having a lot of fun. Everyone was having fun, you know? They know it's a movie about a man turning into a dog, they know it's for the family. They've accepted that and decided to just have a good time and make the best movie they could. I can respect that.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

I enjoyed it. There were some good laughs, a complete and interesting story, and some pretty clever laughs. Ultimately, though there were not enough laughs. It's funny, just not outrageously funny. Plus, at the end of the day, even with the transforming animals, mutant freak animals, and animal attacks, it's still a kid's movie. I'm just not the target audience so it's hard for me to recommend. If you have kids you need to keep quite for a few hours, this will certainly do the trick, and you won't be bored to tears.

DVD worthy?: Nope. It was cute but I don't see this in my future. Even if I had kids and was the type of parent that let the TV baby sit the kids, I still wouldn't bother. All the kids in the theater were well behaved in seemingly paying attention to the movie, but my better judgment tells me Shaggy Dog is too long to hold a child's attention at home where there are so many other distractions.

If you liked this movie check out: The Nutty Professor

Dog reminded me of the dual lives Eddie Murphy struggles with in the Nutty Professor movies. Even though Murphy only loses weight, it's still a dramatic transformation that turns his life upside down. The movie then becomes about controlling the transformations and stabilizing life. I like the way Dog mixed the problem into the story but didn't make it the only thing going on. Transforming into a dog certainly slows Dave Douglas down, but he's out to learn the truth. His own transformation woes are only part of that truth.

Where Professor wins out is in laughs. It's Eddie at the top of his game and there are a lot of genuine gut busters in that movie. Of course it's not as kid friendly as Dog but it still has that Disney remake glow to it.

Trailer Hitch: Cars

"The Last good Pixar Movie". Maybe not. It doesn't look that good to me. I don't know, this movie comes out on June 9th, and I don't know if 3 months is enough time for me to get used to the idea of a talking car movie that doesn't involve Transformers or Michael Knight. I've had plenty of time to get used to the idea since the teasers were running back last summer, but with this first viewing of the full trailer I'm far from won over or prepared.

I'm sure it will be good, but if one of those cars finishes a race, huffs and puffs off the road and says "I'm EXHAUSTed" then I'm walking the hell out.

Vote Bonus:

I assume everyone knows Tom Brazelton, the godfather of movie web comics. He (and me too) was named as one of the 14 Coolest Dudes in Webcomics, and specifically awarded the honor of Nicest guy in web comics. Debatable. But I've seen him kick a puppy! That's all I'm saying? Seriously, congratulations to Tom and all the others on the list. Much deserved, and thanks to Peter for including me in such good company with the More Output Than Every Other Cool Dude Put Together. award.

Non movie related stuff:

Yesterday I had a guest comic go up at Theaterhopper. I've done guest strips for Tom before but whenever I do it's always as an artist to a friend Mark. Mark and I met in the Theaterhopper community and the fact that we've done three of these strips now speaks towards the great community Theaterhopper has. One of the most tight knit friendly forums in the world. A fitting environment for a fantastic comic.

Just wanted to give a proper shout out to Clay and Hampton from Rob and Elliot for the support lately. After hanging out with Clay at the NY comic con he asked for a JLCM banner and has been running it ever since. It's steered so much traffic our way that our web provider is telling us to upgrade our account. So, welcome to all you RandE readers, hope you enjoy the set up. And big big big thanks to Clay and Hampton. You guys rock.

Thanks for reading, everyone.