 |
Underdog I visited a suburban movie theater over the weekend. The kind that sells homey snacks at the concessions stand (Corndogs anyone?) and shows only wholesome all-American films (no Team America: World Police, no Death of a President, no Sicko!)
The chairs in the theater were comfy and spacious to accommodate large American backsides. As I settled, taking in the pre-film entertainment with frozen drink in one hand and overflowing bag of popcorn in the other, a kid perked up. “I don’t want this,” he kept repeating, referring to the local ads and mindless trivia being aired. “I want the Superdog movie.” Soon the on-screen warnings to quite cell-phones and reduce talking were being projected onto the screen. Yet they did not deter him. “Where! Is! The Superdog movie?” The previews started rolling, but this kid was unbelievably relentless, “Is this the Superdog movie?” He was also my son.
I tried to tell my 2½ -year-old son to pike down, but hopped-up on Blue Raspberry ICEE he was so excited to see the Disney/Spyglass Entertainment cinematic remake of Underdog that no amount of gentle admonishment could silence him. “What about this one?” He asked with every new preview. “This one poppa?… Now we see it?… Maybe this one?…” Finally the house lights faded and the feature film began with a titling montage of old Underdog footage from the TV series. And with that the dogged questioning ended.
Underdog - the small screen version – was a childhood favorite of mine. Created in the nineteen-sixties by the General Mills company to hawk breakfast cereal, Underdog was a runaway success that simply wouldn’t heel. The series spawned a television company for its creators W. Watts Biggers, artist Joe Harris, Tread Covington Chet Stover (a company who’s life seemed measured in dog years), and lives on today through syndication, reruns and YouTube uploads. The big screen adaptation, written by scripted by Joe Piscatella and Craig A. Williams, seems, like many films in the genre, destined for lackluster box office sales and a litter of direct-to-DVD sequels.
Though the writers stay true to the main plot of the television series, in an attempt to give reason as to why Underdog is who he is, they deviated from the original version’s running gag. In the original man and beast co-exist in a strange metropolis where evil lurks around every corner, humans are unbelievably stupid and no one is surprised that the animals talk. The remake distorts this man/beast distopia by removing the animal’s anthropomorphic characteristics and reducing them to Mr. Ed curiosities that live secret lives as intelligent beings. Shoeshine, Underdog’s everyman, or should I say everydog, alter ego, becomes nothing more than a lap dog in search of love and family in this remake.
Otherwise the film’s cast of characters is similar to the original’s and the storyline was easy enough for my preschooler to follow (Dog gets kicked off K-9 police force. Dog gains powers from mad scientist in lab experiment gone awry. Dog saves city from time bomb.), yet it lacked the adult humor I have come to expect from movies such as this - the kind of humor that goes over the head of anyone under four-feet tall. This absence of facetiousness ultimately makes the film almost unbearable for any reasonable adult to watch and one might find himself harrumphing at every overly obvious plot twist, cringing at the many blatant instances of product placement (Cocoa Puffs anyone?) and begging that writers of Underdog either unleashed it to run free like a crazed Jack Russell terrier with a new squeaky-toy or send it off to the movie-making vets for neutering.
Should audiences expect anything different from a PG-rated, animated kids’ flick? Well, yes. The Shrek franchise – that straddles the adult/kid humor line well; Ratatouille – with its somewhat grown-up plot; and Surf’s Up – the only animated stoner mockumentary I know of, are all recent films aimed at youngsters that neither crushed the adult audience under mounds sugary cuteness nor went grossly overboard with tongue-in-cheek humor the way Universal’s 2003 The Cat In The Hat did (The Cat: “Dirty hoe… I’m sorry. I love you.”).
But who cares what adults think? Not the film-houses. Marketing a movie like Underdog to kids is a guaranteed two-for. Parents, guardians or beleaguered big sisters have to escort the little rapscallions to these films – and pay to sit through them. Rendering all adult opinion null and void. A truly unbiased review can only be obtained from the under-twelve crowd. So after the credits rolled and we laughed through a few mock-outtakes (Underdog: “Have no fear, Underwear is here!”), as I walked out to the parking lot with my son I asked, “What did you think of the movie?” “Superdog is cool,” he said. “He can fly. I like it! But some bad guys were a little bit scary, so Superdog has to rescue the good guys.”
Disregarding the fact that this preschooler didn’t quite understand that Underdog was not Superdog, he was absolutely right. Underdog is a cool film in which a varsity sweater-wearing talking dog flies to rescue the good guys from the bad guys. If you go in expecting more, you’ll leave, as I did, rabid and foaming at the mouth.
|
