Critics lambasted Marmaduke when it came out in the theater. It didn’t last more than two weeks here in Lexington. To be fair to the critics of the world, I can understand that. The film revolves around a newspaper comic strip that has been in circulation since 1954. Certainly the personality and main characters were already establish, but the problem with pulling a one-day storyline from a newspaper is that you have to build something that coherent that might last over a span of a month. Newspaper comic strips simply cannot carry that kind of story load. It would be like if you tried to create a movie of Gary Larson comic strips (Far Side); it wouldn’t work well. And Marmaduke didn’t work well, if you were solely going by the dog featured in your local newspaper.
What happened here is that director Tom Dey borrowed the personality and character names from the original comic strip and built a storyline that was literally separated from what people are use to seeing with Marmaduke. So you might be seeing the name, but the story truly has nothing to do with the comic strip character (other than he does get in trouble from time to time). What Dey and crew put together certainly wouldn’t win any Academy Awards.
To catch you up on the story, Marmaduke and family move from Kansas to California in attempt to boost Phil’s (Lee Pace) career as a marketing guru for an organic dog food distributor. Well, as you can probably guess, the family doesn’t like the move or the change in family lifestyle, and they do their best to go against the grain of adjustment; even Marmaduke. Wackiness ensues, lessons are learned and family importance overcomes job necessity (if only we lived in this world).
Again, the story isn’t going to win any awards and it’s more predictable than saying the sun is going to show up tomorrow morning. It’s also very preachy as you get lessons on racism, being a bully, family importance, child trauma and social classes (yes, all of this in Marmaduke). Guess what, though? This freakin’ movie wasn’t made for us; it was made for the kids. So when you see stupid comedy and all of these lessons that we could probably get from watching a movie like Fast Times at Ridgemont High you have to remind yourself that this movie wasn’t suppose to teach us (the adults) anything we haven’t learned already. It was suppose to be stupid fun for kids. So forgive the simple acting style, the crappy CG and the campy learning lessons. If your kids laugh and want to see it again then it’s fine. It was made for their entertainment, not ours.
The movie is fun, it’s fast (less than 90s minutes) and the younger kids in your household will love it. Are there better movies out there for kids? Yes, I can think of a dozen Disney movies right now that might entertain your kids more. With that said, kids won’t think of a dozen movies. They will simply see a dog talking and doing stupid things, and they’ll enjoy it.
Shifting gears just slightly, the special features on this DVD aren’t that great in comparison to other kids movies I’ve seen recently (I have four kids in the household and I watch movies on a regular basis). You get a very okay surfing featurette called Cowabarka! regarding surfing dogs. You also get the Canine Casting featurette, which is just what it sounds like. Other than those things you get some deleted scenes. Really, there isn’t much in this department for the adults, but kids won’t care. They’ll probably wear out the movie.