Good Boy (2003)

  Plot Summary

Owen Baker (Liam Aiken) is a lonely 12 year old boy.  The poor sod has no brothers, sisters or friends, and his parents, who move house regularly, don't understand!  But all that is about to change when Owen goes to pick out a pet dog from the local pound.  He picks out a sad looking mutt and calls him Hubble.  But Hubble is no ordinary dog.  He has travelled, across space, from Dog Star Sirius to do a status report on dogs' mission to colonise and takeover Earth!

Owen discovers that Hubble can talk to him and that he can talk to Hubble.  He learns that the leader of all dogs, "The Great Dane", is coming to Earth, from Dog Star Sirius, and that she is not going to be happy when she discovers that dogs have not taken over the Earth but instead have disgraced themselves by becoming pets!!

Review

Young children (up to nine or ten years of age) will enjoy the cute dogs that feature in this movie and the tricks that they do.  Unfortunately there isn't much in the movie for older kids and certainly not much for the parents.  Parents in particular need a laugh after struggling to their seats with excited kids, buckets of popcorn, drinks, sweets and tickets!!  While some "kids movies" strive to entertain all ages Good Boy is a light hearted affair with a simple story and unsophisticated humour.  This movie is very much on the lines of Cats & Dogs.

The dogs in the movie do plenty of tricks which will delight young children and which must have broken the hearts of the animal trainers!  I'm sure a lot of time and patience was needed to get things right.  In the movie the dogs are able to talk and with the help of visual technology the effect is quite good!  Among others, the dogs are voiced by Matthew Broderick, Brittany Murphy, Vanessa Redgrave and Carl Reiner.  The voice of Vanessa Redgrave is probably the most recognisable.  She does the stern voice of the "Great Dane".  Matthew Broderick does the voice of Hubble.

The animal cast almost out number the humans.  Liam Aiken plays 12 year old Owen and he is a likeable character who looks after the local dogs and tries to prepare them for the visit of their leader the "Great Dane".  Molly Shannon and Kevin Nealon play Owen's parents.

Bottom Line: A harmless little movie that will delight younger kids but won't entertain parents or teenagers.

Reviewed by Niall Quinn, Premier Movie Reviews 2003

Genre: Children's comedy

Certificate: Gen

Director: John Hoffman

~ Main Cast ~

Liam Aiken

Molly Shannon

Kevin Nealon

RATING

ONLY IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO