There is no God…
Simple proof is available in all good cinemas this August with the release of Marmaduke. Based on a newspaper funny strip by Brad Anderson, started back in 1954, When pet-food marketer Lee Pace, gets a job that moves the whole family from Kansas to California, everyone must adapt to their new life, including the clumsy family dog, voiced with surfer-dude sass by Owen Wilson.
The rest of the story is so utterly rote and predictable that it insults the intelligence to even synopsise it. Every story beat, every line of dialogue, every set piece and cataclysmic bumbling moment by the lead hound and the supporting human cast just feels so utterly worn that you are left feeling numb to every feel good, 'just be true to yourself' message that pours like liquid sugar from the screen.
Anyone who has seen any output by Disney, Dreamworks or Pixar in the past sixty years will have trodden this path and know where every single plot thread is going before the titles even roll, which means that all you have left is the spectacle and the jokes.
Sadly, the jokes comprise of simply shouting “Marmaduke” and falling over if you’re a human, or making poor pop-culture references and pee jokes if you’re a member of the animal kingdom. While the CG spectacle varies wildly between competently done and appalling, especially when Marmaduke gets to do some more ludicrous action,
such as surfing, playing dance machines or doing a Bollywood-style dance routine towards the finale.
The script though, may be the movie’s most heinous crime, comprising of simply mentioning Marmaduke's name every third word, like some kind of audio water torture. By the time the theatre lights came up, I was of the opinion that saying "Marmaduke" three times in a mirror would invoke a canine Bloody Mary; and frankly, I would have welcomed her, if it meant early release from this film.
The voice acting from Wilson, Sutherland and co is all serviceable, but feels flat and barely-relates to the action on screen; while the live-action actors all comprise of smiles and Disney-lite performances, which hint at a desperate need for a paycheck.
Overall, Marmaduke is a flaccid, dull and emotionally hollow, with little to engage either age group. If this movie was a real dog, it would have been put down years ago.
Yaargh! The landlubber who made a mistake in this post has been keelhauled and all is now ship-shape
So I guess you're saying that you wouldn't even let this dog of a movie hump your leg?
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