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The kind of kids' movie that grandparents can take their eight-year-old grandkids to, Hotel For Dogs is less a movie than an excuse to go "Awwww!"
No dogs die, no butts are embarrassingly sniffed, no hearts are broken (although they are liberally warmed) and a surprisingly strong cast falls prey to the truism about acting opposite kids and dogs.
Actually, you can add a corollary to that. The kids themselves are trumped by the dogs in the flimsy Hotel For Dogs, as surely as rock breaks scissors.
Emma Roberts, herself almost 18, plays 16-year-old Andi, an orphan protecting her little brother Bruce (Jake T. Austin) from the "care" of a series of negligent foster parents -- the latest being a pair of pathetic over-age rockers (Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon) who feed them gelatinous frozen dinners.
On the side, the kids' social worker Bernie (Don Cheadle, who is so not into this movie he seems as if he's on medication) keeps working on their behalf.
Meanwhile, on the sly, Andi and Bruce take care of a perpetually hungry scruffy street dog named Friday. One step ahead of Animal Control, they all stumble upon a deserted (but surprisingly still well-comfited) hotel that's already home to a mastiff named Lenny and a Boston terrier named Georgia. Soon, they've brainstormed the movie's title into existence, saving what becomes as many as 60 dogs from the guys with nets, with the help of three new friends -- a couple of teen pet-store employees Dave and Heather (Johnny Simmons and Kyla Pratt) and mouthy neighbour Mark (Troy Gentile).
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That's pretty much it. Austin gets some high-concept screen time inventing new contraptions to feed dogs and to deal with their do-do (the filmmakers seem very proud of the scene in which a bunch of dogs sit on a row of toilets in unison), and Roberts gets a teensy bit of teen romantic drama with Dave in a tacked-on party scene.
But, really, it's all about the dogs -- every breed you can imagine, including a weirded-out "Chinese Crested" named Romeo who's in love with a poodle named Juliet. (Don't worry, they don't do what dogs really do when they're "in love," they just kiss). In fact, their romance is more fleshed out than Andi and Dave's.
A movie like this does not throw curveballs. You know their ideal inn is doomed to be discovered, and, to ominous musical accompaniment, Animal Control will swoop down like the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco on a religious compound. But you also know something unlikely will happen and everything will be improbably cool at the end in every way.
A movie like Hotel For Dogs is so carefully demographically targeted, it takes the guesswork out of deciding whether to go. It is not a movie that kids and adults will enjoy equally. In fact, kids 12 and older are likely to be bored and cynical about the whole thing.
Pre-tweens, however, are right in the movie's wheelhouse. For them and the adults who accompany them, it's a bonding experience that can be boiled down into nine little words: "Who's a good dog? You are! Yes you are!"
(This film is rated G)