MovieMonday: Show Dogs

I learned after I saw it that this movie had got in trouble with the Committee to Protect Children from Nonconsensual Touching, a group whose name I just made up.

Anyway.  The complaint -- sorta, almost corrected about a week ago -- was that a dog in a beauty contest (not an official AKC event, duh) was instructed to calm down and let some contest judges inspect his private organs.

There was a line that may or may have not been deleted.  But in the final cut, the dog's balls still are groped.  It presumably is funny because the touching is not sexual and the relevant animal is an alpha dog.  Does this happen at the Miss America Pageant?  Beats me.  Still, that is part of the movie.

It is not difficult to see how this idiot script came to be.

First, someone thought, let's make a fun kid-oriented show about doggies in a beauty contest based in Las Vegas, America's capital of narcissism and misbehavior.  Facials, hair curling, etc.  

Then came the idea to force a male police dog to go undercover and act against type as one of the beauty contestants.

Then the script writers wondered, why would a tough-as-nails Rottweiler enter a dog beauty contest?

The obvious answer: to rescue a cute baby panda that is being held by an international animal theft cartel at the dog show.

Pretty thin gruel. 

I don't care about beauty contests, human or canine. But I do care about movies for children.

This one lost me when the NYPD cop dog endured a bikini waxing.   If you think that sounds funny, go ahead and take your eight-year-old to see it.  Then try to explain the joke.

"Show Dogs" mashes a pop-humor canine glam fest with a lame buddy theme that pairs a serious police dog with a nebbishy human who happens to be an FBI agent. 

It seems likely that this movie's studio (which not surprisingly blew out of underperforming Warner Bros. and will not be named here by me) has employed execs who aren't smart enough to ask what target audiences their films hope to engage. 


Note

Like the acute rhinitis-inducing weather, this week's movie offerings in the surburban Northeast were dismal.  OTOH, what were people supposed to do?  Go see "Solo?"