Snow Dogs: Movie & DVD Review (2002)
9/12/2007 Posted by Admin
The quality of the cast speaks for itself (Originally published 2002)
Directed by Brian Levant, written by Jim Kouf, Tommy Swerdlow, Michael Goldberg, Mark Gibson and Philip Halprin, loosely based on the book "Winterdance" by Gary Paulsen, 99 minutes, rated PG.
In spite of what its PG rating implies, Disney’s "Snow Dogs" is for children--very young children--preferably those who haven’t seen many movies and thus won’t be disappointed in what Hollywood has done to Cuba Gooding Jr. and James Coburn, fellow Oscar winners who do their best to turn this mush into a reasonably enjoyable mess.
If “Snow Dogs” works at all--and sometimes it works better than it should--it’s because of Gooding and Coburn, who deliver such energetic performances and have such solid chemistry on screen, they overcome Brian Levant’s lackluster direction and an uninspired script credited to no fewer than five writers.
In the film, Gooding is Ted Brooks, a popular Miami dentist taken by surprise when he learns he’s not the son of Amelia (“Star Trek’s” Nechelle Nichols)--but the son of someone else.
In a whirlwind series of events that could only happen in a movie, Ted is plucked out of his Porche Boxter and summoned to the wilds of Alaska, where he lands in the tiny hamlet of Tolketna and discovers his recently deceased birth mother Lucy, whom he never knew existed, was a cabin-dwelling loner who owned a champion dogsled team.
Inheriting Lucy’s cabin and her rambunctious team of dogs is one thing, but Ted also must contend with the pratfalls of the fish-out-of-water comedy. Throughout “Snow Dogs,” he’s periodically dragged through the snow, tackled by the dogs, thrown off a mountaintop, chased by bear and bitten in the booty.
Amazingly, none of what happens to him is as unnerving as the day he meets Thunder Jack (Coburn), a squinting, unsavory hulk of mean-mouthed frostiness who once knew Ted’s mother--and now wants her dogs.
With Joanna Bacalso as Ted’s sunny love interest and R&B singer Sisqo as his dim cousin, “Snow Dogs” eventually builds to a dogsledding event mirrored after the Alaskan Iditarod, where director Levant tries to whip his film into a froth as Ted’s not-so-excellent adventure carries him through an icy blast of snow on the tails of eight running dogs.
Unlike Disney’s last film, the superior “Monsters, Inc.,” “Snow Dogs” doesn’t offer much, but to be fair, it had the youngest viewers at my screening cheering and laughing until the end.
Grade: C+
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Directed by Brian Levant, written by Jim Kouf, Tommy Swerdlow, Michael Goldberg, Mark Gibson and Philip Halprin, loosely based on the book "Winterdance" by Gary Paulsen, 99 minutes, rated PG.
In spite of what its PG rating implies, Disney’s "Snow Dogs" is for children--very young children--preferably those who haven’t seen many movies and thus won’t be disappointed in what Hollywood has done to Cuba Gooding Jr. and James Coburn, fellow Oscar winners who do their best to turn this mush into a reasonably enjoyable mess.
If “Snow Dogs” works at all--and sometimes it works better than it should--it’s because of Gooding and Coburn, who deliver such energetic performances and have such solid chemistry on screen, they overcome Brian Levant’s lackluster direction and an uninspired script credited to no fewer than five writers.
In the film, Gooding is Ted Brooks, a popular Miami dentist taken by surprise when he learns he’s not the son of Amelia (“Star Trek’s” Nechelle Nichols)--but the son of someone else.
In a whirlwind series of events that could only happen in a movie, Ted is plucked out of his Porche Boxter and summoned to the wilds of Alaska, where he lands in the tiny hamlet of Tolketna and discovers his recently deceased birth mother Lucy, whom he never knew existed, was a cabin-dwelling loner who owned a champion dogsled team.
Inheriting Lucy’s cabin and her rambunctious team of dogs is one thing, but Ted also must contend with the pratfalls of the fish-out-of-water comedy. Throughout “Snow Dogs,” he’s periodically dragged through the snow, tackled by the dogs, thrown off a mountaintop, chased by bear and bitten in the booty.
Amazingly, none of what happens to him is as unnerving as the day he meets Thunder Jack (Coburn), a squinting, unsavory hulk of mean-mouthed frostiness who once knew Ted’s mother--and now wants her dogs.
With Joanna Bacalso as Ted’s sunny love interest and R&B singer Sisqo as his dim cousin, “Snow Dogs” eventually builds to a dogsledding event mirrored after the Alaskan Iditarod, where director Levant tries to whip his film into a froth as Ted’s not-so-excellent adventure carries him through an icy blast of snow on the tails of eight running dogs.
Unlike Disney’s last film, the superior “Monsters, Inc.,” “Snow Dogs” doesn’t offer much, but to be fair, it had the youngest viewers at my screening cheering and laughing until the end.
Grade: C+
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December 5, 2008 at 8:44 PM
decent time taker but as reviewer says!