The first year of the new millennium, 2001, sure gave moviegoers a number of reasons to smile: the release of the first Harry Potter, the first Lord of the Rings, the first Ocean’s Eleven remake and the first Shrek. These entertaining films established the beginnings of many beloved (and some not so beloved) sequels bestowed upon us between then and now. Another franchise waiting to happen in 2001 was the original Cats & Dogs, a cute family film that made a mockery of cat allergies and over-excited hounds, leaving an unbeknown family in the dark while their beagle hero Lou had to save the world from Evil – and fluffy white - Mr. Tinkles. Fast forward nine long years and Warner Bros. have finally decided to cash in on a much belated sequel, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Since the kids of 2001 have long since grown up to follow movie franchises that grew with them, any attachment to the original Cats & Dogs has surely been forgotten. Any moviegoers with the ability to look back, will unfortunately be disappointed.
The James Bond-inspired title sequence does well to get the party started – literally, in that it’s coupled with a 007-esque cover of Pink’s Get the Party Started — but things go quickly downhill from there. Bette Middler lends her great voice to one hellishly-ugly and furless Kitty in the titular character of Kitty Galore. She’s a rogue feline agent from the MEOWS organization who, as the title suggests, wants revenge not only on dogs and humans, but on her fellow felines for laughing at her unfortunate baldness. Her dastardly plan? To enslave humanity, of course.
Christina Applegate takes on the role of MEOWS agent Catherine, who must put aside her disdain for all things canine so that the two species can work together to stop the evil Kitty’s plans. Katt Williams plays a grape-brained informant pigeon that has nothing – in either humour nor character – on the pigeons of 2008’s animated doggie movie, Bolt. One of few highlights is 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer as a delusional illusionist whose magic act becomes the cover for the resolving covert affairs of the dogs and the ultimate punishment for the evil Kitty.
Just like those sequels we love to hate, Cats & Dogs 2 deviates almost entirely from the original. The cats and dogs still hate each other, but this time around, the screenplay by Ron J. Friedman and Steve Bencich struggles to be funny. Brad Peyton’s direction really only follows the action, aided by CGI, and misses out on making any real creative mark on the movie.
Sure, Lou the Beagle is still around but his promotion to head of doggie intelligence has relegated him to a dull desk job. Furthermore, Neil Patrick Harris’ voice takes over from Tobey Maguire’s original, making the character seem entirely different. Lou is superseded by an undisciplined and cocky German Shepherd called Diggs (James Marsden), who personifies every stereotype a bitter cat would ever hold against a “dumb dog”. The family aspect of the film — particularly the unremitting love between a little boy and his dog that motivated the canine’s quest last time — is sadly gone too. In its place, this sequel presents Chris O’Donnell as Shane a cardboard cut-out cop who wants to keep his mutt after he’s deemed too unpredictable for police work.
As a result, Cats & Dogs 2 is a family film without a real family; a cute animal movie without a likable pooch hero and, weirdly, references Silence of the Lambs more than once – comparing Mr.Tinkles to Dr.Lector and Catherine to Clarice Starling – in looking for adult approval, but missing its mark entirely with its lack of originality. Another alienating factor arises in the continual switching between full CGI and real animals with animated mouths. Without a consistency between original and legacy and the obvious fact this franchise was rehashed in the name of capitalism, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore will be disappointing to fans of the original and will probably fail to capture any new hearts in its own right.
