Canines and felines are at it again in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, a 3D adventure story that mixes animation and live action.
This is a busy espionage feature with talking pets, so children may well like it. Although there's humour in the film aimed at the grown-ups who accompany those children, the movie is for the under-10 crowd.
Diggs (James Marsden) is a police dog, but he has trouble following orders. After a hostage taking at a used car dealership goes awry, Diggs is in disgrace and back in the pound. He is astonished to be recruited by a spy dog named Butch (Nick Nolte) and he joins the cause against Kitty Galore -- a mad feline with notions of global domination. Kitty Galore (Bette Midler, spectacular as always) is a former spy cat driven mad by the loss of her fur. She now intends to broadcast a sound only dogs can hear, driving them all mad and robbing humans of their best friends.
What a diabolical plan! If only anyone cared! Kitty Galore's plot is so wicked that cats and dogs, some of them voiced by people like Christina Applegate and Neil Patrick Harris, have to join forces and work together for the first time ever to defeat their common enemy.
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore involves talking cats and dogs and their sophisticated spy networks. It references to other movies, mostly James Bond movies. You get Roger Moore voicing a sophisticated cat called Tab Lazenby, for example, and the Bond-y soundtrack includes Dame Shirley (Goldfinger) Bassey singing Get the Party Started. There are nods to other movies, such as The Silence of the Lambs, in that a cat called Mr. Tinkles (Sean Hayes) appears in a Hannibal Lector getup. Are you riveted? Tickled? Doubled over? If so, this could be your kind of movie.
Lest we forget, hanging out with the cat and dog team in this film is a moronic pigeon called Seamus (Katt Williams), who keeps up a running commentary as events unfold. Seamus is dense, and the closest thing to funny in the movie -- except funny along the same lines as Jar Jar Binks or Step 'n Fetchit. Is it just us, or is there something a bit odd about that?
Frantic and confusing action and lots of special effects can't really hide the thin story in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, but smallfry may not notice, and they are the target audience. The film seemed clunky and disjointed to this viewer, and eventually very dull.
On the upside, before the main event, you get to see a new Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon in 3D. Meep, Meep! It's awesome.
