GOOD BOY

REVIEWED BY BRETT WILLIS

Our rating: 4 out of 5

Because of: innuendo, bathroom humor

Rated:

Owen (Liam Aiken) is a misfit at school and in life, partly because his parents are in the business of buying, renovating and selling homes and this keeps them always on the move. Owen would also like to have a dog, and in the meantime he does the next best thing: runs a dog walking service. Finally Owen gets a dog named Hubble (voice of Matthew Broderick). But Hubble isn’t too receptive to Owen’s commands. The reason: Hubble is really Canid 3942, a scout sent from Sirius (the “Dog Star”) to see why earth’s dogs (ALL of whom are descendents of space visitors) haven’t yet taken over the planet. When Hubble sees that dogs have become humans’ PETS, he knows that he’ll have to do some fast footwork with the facts—or else everyone is going to be in BIG trouble when the Greater Dane flies in from Sirius and checks on things personally.

Complicating things further, Owen accidentally stumbles on Hubble operating some fancy electronic equipment, and Owen—after being zapped with a discharge—acquires the ability to understand the dogs’ language. So, now the secret is out. This is Sci-Fi, but it’s the really mindless and therefore relatively inoffensive kind. It doesn’t make sense, but its not supposed to. How did a creature with no opposable thumbs pilot that flying saucer? The dogs are cute, the stars who provide the voices are good matches, and the special effects of moving the dogs’ mouths as they speak are well-done enough not to be distracting. Profanity/vulgarity consists of some animal humor about “poop,” “pee,” farting, butt-sniffing, drinking from the toilet etc.; a double-meaning statement that a dog traveling in space had to “pass through Uranus;” and a double-meaning statement in which Owen tells two bullies that they have no balls. 

Minimal violence includes the two bullies hassling Owen and throwing rocks at a dog. There’s essentially no sexual content, just some cleavage in one scene. One of the neighborhood dogs is owned by two men who live together, but I didn’t think of that as having gay implications (some reviewers did). Overall this is a cute film with an as-expected happy ending. But the amount of gratuitous crude humor is embarrassing and creates a problem for parents. It’s cleaner than most films, of course. If it were aimed at mature audiences I’d say it was very restrained. But the content is inappropriate for the target age group. 

I believe in letting kids be kids as long as possible and this kind of film is no help. I recommend it, but with strong reservations. Each parent should consider what their own children already watch and listen to. This film isn’t important enough to see that any new ground need be broken by viewing it.