Review by David Franklin
Stars Owen Wilson, Lee Pace, Judy Greer, William H Macy, Emma Stone, Kiefer Sutherland, Fergie, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Steve Coogan, Sam Elliott
Written by Tim Rasmussen & William Di Meglio
Certification UK U | US PG
Runtime 88 minutes
Directed by Tom Dey
Note: the following review contains 3 outright lies which I’ve helpfully numbered.
If the dog actor that plays Marmaduke ever watches the finished film, I’m almost certain his first reaction will be: “Haha, look, it’s me ... WHOA, WHAT THE FUCK HAVE THEY DONE TO MY MOUTH?!” And I’m with him on that one. There’s something about animals talking with CGI lip-synched mouths that unnerves me. I missed whole sections of Carlos the cat’s dialogue because I was staring at his computer contorted cat-gob, and if there’s one thing you don’t want to do in this film it’s miss any of the dialogue: Marmaduke is a deeply moving hymn to the delicately balanced relationship between man and beast (1).
The movie takes the long running comic strip about the clumsy but loveable Great Dane and updates it to Orange County, California, where the Winslow family have just moved so that Dad Phil (Pace) can take a job as a marketing executive for an organic dog-food company (I can see you getting excited at that plot description... try to contain yourself). While Phil takes meetings walking barefoot in an enormous dog park with his new boss Don Twombly (Macy), Marmaduke (voiced by Wilson) attempts to fit in with the local hounds. These include bullying pedigree dog Bosco (Sutherland), girl-next-door type Mazie (Stone) and sexy (!) collie Jezebel (Fergie). Along the way Marmaduke knocks things over, surfs and farts. It all builds to an aqueduct-rescue climax that must rank as the most exciting action sequence since the Algiers rooftop chase in The Bourne Ultimatum (2).
The basic conceit of the dog park is that it’s like a typical American high school... so you’ve got the pretty but vacant cheerleader dogs, the nerd dogs, the jock dogs (which are the dogs that catch frisbees) and the snobby pedigree dogs. A slightly odd extension of the dog park/high school setup is that some of the female dogs are required to be romantic suitors for Marmaduke and so the filmmakers try to make them glamourous and, dare I say it, sexy. This makes for some slightly queasy viewing. Try as they might, they aren’t going to convince me a dog is sexy (3).
Somehow I always expected Marmaduke to sound something like Scooby Doo, but in actual fact he has the southern drawl of Owen Wilson. He’s fine, and the film is actually mildly entertaining for about 90 seconds. I chuckled at a joke about a cat drugged for a flight who becomes fascinated by his own paws. But the fun doesn’t last long. Written throughout in that bland, sitcom style prevalent in children’s films where the writers can’t be bothered, the film features crushingly obvious pratfalls, puns (“it’s raining cats and us!”) and life lessons (hmmm Dad the marketing executive isn’t spending enough time with his family ... where are they going with this?). Even the children at the screening I attended started to get audibly restless and uncomfortable (though that may have been because I was texting them).
The human characters, particularly Marmaduke’s family, are so bland they cross the line into Stepford Wives-style creepiness. Particularly odd is the presence of Macy. Obviously he’s just collecting a paycheck, but for such a gifted character actor he brings almost nothing to the role of Don Twombly, who’s just a fairly dull management type. They could have hired anyone, and spent the money they saved on more Bonio biscuits for the canine cast, which would have been nice. Now to be fair I could try to look at this film through 6-year-old eyes, but I don’t want to pretend to be a child (in fact, I’m legally obliged not to thanks to those squares at Guildford Magistrate’s Court) so I’ll just say this, from one grown-up to another: I’d sooner show my kids a documentary about the miners’ strike than this. Marmaduke is dreadful. Unless you happen to be an incredibly undemanding 6-year-old, in which case you might like it (cut to Colin, aged 6, reading this, jam sandwich dropping from mouth in astonishment).