Dir: Shea Wageman. With the voices of: Owen Wilson, Ruairi MacDonald, Dawson Littman, Elishia Perosa. 95 mins. Cert: PG
In an ever gappier release schedule, there’s little in the way of a back-up plan for any youngsters and parents shut out of this weekend’s The Mandalorian and Grogu. The major studios’ animation departments have already delivered the blockbusting likes of Hoppers, G.O.A.T. and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie to multiplexes this spring, setting distributors scrabbling to source what instinctively feel like matinee contingency arrangements. If a new, Chinese-produced Tom and Jerry caper doesn’t spark undue enthusiasm, the most immediate family alternative would be this very ordinary Canuck digimation, featuring the voice of Owen Wilson as a dog with superpowers; having tanked in the US earlier this year, Shea Wageman’s film gets repurposed here as half-term screenfiller.
Wageman earns some points for weirdness. The titular pooch is one of a menagerie of household pets beamed up one night for alien experimentation. (Here, this PG-rated entertainment comes close to busting out the probes.) Returned home with the ability to fly and speak in a recognisably Wilsonian drawl, Charlie resolves to use his superpowers for good – becoming, if you will, Bark Kent. Animated hackery sets in with more of American movies’ virulent anti-cat propaganda: neighbour’s puss Puddy (Ruairi MacDonald) breaks bad, pledging to punish his now-cowering owner, and indeed humanity entire, for failing to empty his litter tray. Yes, there’s a digimated litter tray: you fear for those programmers tasked with piling the gravel high.
Forget the legacies of Disney/Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, and Charlie might seem passable. (Wageman is hoping his audience hasn’t encountered 2009’s Bolt, where Disney did something similar with greater pizzazz.) This script has one solid, funny idea – that Charlie and Puddy represent differing responses to the sentience we humans take for granted – but it gets squandered amid the usual frenetic, ten-a-penny setpieces, which zip into the eyes and immediately exit via the ears. For Wilson, invited to summon the howls of a canine with cacti spines in his butt and a loud belch after Charlie overdoes his beloved bolognese, this was doubtless an easy paycheque. Let’s just hope this winter’s ominous-looking Fockers sequel brings the earlier, funnier Owen back.
Charlie the Wonderdog opens in cinemas nationwide tomorrow.
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