Marmaduke (20th Century Fox)
A Movie A TV Audience Could Love
Marmaduke is the kind of entertainment you would expect to find shown in an After School Special or on the Disney Channel. It is not the type of entertainment you expect to see on the big screen when it costs you eight or nine dollars a pop. It is kid friendly to be sure but that alone is not enough to make it must see movie entertainment.
Marmaduke (voiced by Owen Wilson) is a huge Great Dane that lives with the Winslow family in Kansas. The father in the family is Phil (Lee Pace), mother is Debbie (Judy Greer) and there are three kids. One day Phil comes home and announces he has a new job and the family, plus the dog and cat pets, is moving to California.
In California Phil takes Marmaduke to the Dog Park where he meets the area dogs. They are divided into a class system of mutts and pedigrees. The leader of the mutts is Mazie (voiced by Emma Stone) and the leader of the pedigrees is Bosco (voiced by Keifer Sutherland). Marmaduke is shunned by the pedigrees but accepted by the mutts.
The rest of the film concerns Marmadukes attempts to be accepted by the pedigrees and the trouble that leads him into. You know there is going to be a happy ending, probably with a message and moral included in it. You also know, if you saw the trailer, that you are going to get to see the dogs dance.
Wilsons voice goes along with the persona of Marmaduke and makes him a likable talking pet (of course the humans cant hear him). You do get to see the dogs mouths move when they talk which is a bit strange. Even a cat gets into the picture since the Winslows have two pets. It is a cat named Carlos (voiced by George Lopez).
The film is rated PG for rude humor.
The human actors make no impact at all. Even the usually wonderful William H Macy, who plays Phils new boss, is unimpressive. It is a part any twelve actors could have done and done just as good as Macy does. Pace and Greer are bland beyond belief. The child actors are a little bit better.
Marmaduke is certainly a movie you can take your children to see and they will have a little bit of fun with the whole thing. Still it would be best to wait until the movie comes out on DVD and you can put them in front of the TV and let them watch it alone. That will save parents a two hour endurance test of doggy devotion.
I scored Marmaduke a dog gone 4 out of 10.
