Exeter Odeon, Hotel for Dogs
Certificate U, 100 minutes
By Graham Taylor
Recently, it seems that dogs have been taking over the cinemas.
We’ve had Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Bolt, and now, Hotel for Dogs has a nationwide release. Plus, the surprise American success, Marley and Me is expected to make a killing at the box office.
Despite this being the worst ‘dog’ film so far, Hotel for Dogs is a sweet but sickly kid’s tale of a an orphaned brother and sister, Andi and Bruce (Emma Roberts and Jake. T. Austin), who hate their foster parents, musician’ Lois and Carl Scudder (Lisa ‘Pheobe’ Kudrow and Kevin Dillon.)
Despite their efforts to keep out of mischief, both manage to constantly get themselves into heaps of trouble with the law, selling dodgy goods and such, much to the disappointment of their social worker, Bernie (Don Cheadle.)
As Andi and Bruce try to keep in the shadows, they continue to hide their dog, Friday, who they have kept with them for three years without any of their foster parents knowing.
Then, Bruce is taken to the pound as he is left on his own, and Andi and Bruce manage to recover him. As they search, Andi meets Dave (Johnny Simmons) and Heather (Kyla Pratt), who work at a pet store. And the attraction between Andi and Dave is ‘sizzling’ (it really isn’t.)
As Andi and Bruce find themselves once again in the wrong place at the wrong place (at the scene of a theft), they (stupidly) run away from the police, and following Friday, they crawl through a hatch and discover they’ve entered a disused hotel, where they also find two stray dogs, Lenny and Georgia.
As Bruce is unwilling to let them go, he persuades Andi to help him renovate the hotel for the three dogs.
As Andi returns to the pet store for food, Dave asks her to look after some stray dogs he found, after Andi says her family save dogs. She then reveals to Dave about the ‘Hotel for Dogs’, as does Heather who follows them, and another curious boy, Mark (Troy Gentile), who witnesses what’s going on. The five then renovate the hotel for the dog’s best interests, plus some luxuries, such as a simulation ride room and dog toilets.
Of course, everything is going amazingly well, until, to the obvious shock of everyone watching who’s over six years of age, everything goes completely wrong, resulting in some devastating results. But can the dogs change the outcome?
This is a kids film, and that’s all it aims to be; dumb fun, that doesn’t hurt the brain. This is great for kids, and it is an original idea, which is a change from your average kid friendly film.
Yet, despite the original plotline, it’s has what every kid’s film has the yo-yo, by which I mean it starts bad, gets amazingly better, back to being bad and then happily ever after.
It would have been interesting if they’d cut the film by 25 minutes and just left it at bad!