Hotel for Dogs

Cast: Emma Roberts, Don Cheadle, Johnny Simmons, Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Dillon, Eric Edelstein, Andre Ware, Jake T. Austin, Troy Gentile
Language: English
Banner: Donners Company, The Montecito Picture Company
Director: Thor Freudenthal
Producer: Ivan Reitman, Tom Pollock, Jeffrey Clifford
Camera: Michael Grady
Story: Lois Duncan
Screenplay: Jeff Lowell, Bob Schooley, McCorkle
Dialogue: Jeff Lowell, Bob Schooley, McCorkle
Music: John Debney
Distribution: Paramount Pictures
Year: 2009

Children and dogs: those two magic words distill the appeal of 'Hotel for Dogs,' the cuter-than-cute, sweeter-than-sweet family film about animal-loving kids who embark on a crusade to rescue all the stray pooches in a fictional city. After watching the movie, only a grouchy critic — one who shares W. C. Fields’s conviction that a man who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad — would shout “Bah, humbug!” and summon the truant officer and the dog catcher. I wouldn’t dream of it, but ...

The liberation movement is led by the recently orphaned 16-year-old Andi (Emma Roberts) and her 11-year-old brother, Bruce (Jake T. Austin), who have been shuttled among foster homes in the three years since the deaths of their parents. Their latest guardians, Lois and Carl Scudder (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon), a scowling, untalented pair of aspiring rock musicians, are in the foster-parent business strictly for the money.

The inedible microwave slop they serve their charges for dinner types them as inhumane misanthropes of Dickensian proportions, and 'Hotel for Dogs' is the rare example of a movie that equates rock ’n’ roll grunge with meanspiritedness. Because no dogs are allowed in the Scudders’ apartment, Andi and Bruce are forced to conceal the existence of Friday, their beloved, insatiably hungry Jack Russell terrier.

Directed by Thor Freudenthal and adapted from Lois Duncan’s popular children’s book, this movie imagines a world of brilliant, caring children and glum, clueless grown-ups. The only sympathetic adults are Andi and Bruce’s kindhearted but frustrated social worker, Bernie (Don Cheadle), and his wife, Carol (Robinne Lee).

When Friday disappears, the children track him to an abandoned hotel where a couple of stray dogs have taken up residence. Helped by Dave (Johnny Simmons), a friendly pet-store manager with a truck, they evacuate the canine population of the prisonlike local pound and relocate the dogs to the hotel, which Bruce, a mechanical wizard, turns into a doggy paradise stocked with miraculous gadgets.

At about this point the Hollywood ick factor kicks in. Andi and Dave experience the first throes of puppy love; meanwhile a mismatched pair of pooches, Romeo and Juliet, begin making eyes.

But in the most imaginative scenes, the frisky pups gleefully interact with Bruce’s outlandish inventions, each of which is designed to meet a different need. The pooches exercise on rows of treadmills equipped with chewable bones as lures to keep them moving forward. A fetch machine spewing tennis balls also has them scampering to and fro. Meals are served in a Rube Goldberg-worthy assembly line that suggests a giant automat. Elaborate toilets streamline sewage disposal; there is even a self-draining hydrant with an attached shower.

Although you wouldn’t want an entire movie devoted to such shenanigans, 'Hotel for Dogs' isn’t half as zany as it might have been. In any case, it is loaded with enough stupid pet and human tricks to satisfy David Letterman for years to come.

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