If “Marmaduke†could be judged solely by the voice acting of Owen Wilson and George Lopez, it still wouldn’t be able to cut the cinematic mustard. Funny when they have to be, the duo make this film stomach-able, but in the end, it’s just not enough. Even the adorable animals shown throughout aren’t enough, as the script is so poor that you’d think it was written on the back of a coupon for dog food.
Tom Dey hasn’t had much luck in Hollywood in his tenure as a director, at the helm of such yawn-fests as “Failure to Launch, “Showtime,†and the Wilson starring “Shanghai Noon†and his luck doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon. The script, written by Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio is weaker than a Chihuahua with bulimia and feels like recycled gibberish from every other sloppy film starring man’s best friend.
Think “Bingo†without the funny football-playing father, or better yet, “Dr. Doolittle†without Eddie Murphy and a plot that makes some kind of sense.
Case in point: One second the Winslow family is comfortable in Kansas [the best parts of the film are early on when Marmaduke [Wilson] is making introductions and Carlos [Lopez] is chiming in]and then the next, the family dog is out surfing, trying to save his master’s job.
You can’t make this stuff up. Wait, Rasmussen and Di Meglio did- and Dey was paid to tell people to act it out.
That should be the made up part.
It’s not that the live actors in this film are horrible, they just have nothing to work with.
This film did actually have promise, albeit on paper only. Lee Pace [“When in Rome,†“Miss Pettigrew Live For A Dayâ€] is a solid young actor and with the likes of Keifer Southerland, Sam Elliot, Fergie, Emma Stone and the Wayans Brothers joining Wilson and Lopez to do voice-overs, all this flick needed was a decent script.
How they managed to snag William H. Macy to do this disaster is another story all its own.
In spite of all of this, the film is still an achievement for its end scene, which features a dog-dancing montage that will absolutely petrify young children. It seems the computer animation people botched the scene and Marmaduke’s head seems a bit small for his body at times. Looking like a shrunken monkey’s head at a store where a mogwai could be purchased, that scene is the icing on the cake.
This film is a disaster.
Nevertheless, in spite of its inability to proportion heads on animals properly, the rest of the film is pretty darn adorable and caters to the innocent sensibilities of children as the Great Dane does everything from going on dates in junkyard to playing video games. Because of this, the more than predictable, yet charming and clumsy adventures of “Marmaduke†could see decent DVD returns as a film that parents use to occupy their four or five-year-old before bed.
However, this element, if anything doesn’t mean it has any redeeming features.
It just further clarifies that the only people who can enjoy this film have yet to understand the qualities most decent films possess.
Like a well-written and logical script.
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