In an ever more threadbare release schedule, there’s little in the way of a backup plan for any youngsters and parents shut out of The Mandalorian and Grogu. The major studios’ animation departments have already delivered the blockbusting likes of Hoppers, Goat and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie to multiplexes this spring, setting distributors scrabbling around to dig up filler material for kids’ matinee shows. If a new, Chinese-produced Tom and Jerry caper doesn’t spark undue enthusiasm, the most immediate family alternative would be this very ordinary Canadian digimation, featuring the voice of Owen Wilson as a dog with superpowers.
Co-writer and director Shea Wageman earns some points for weirdness. The titular pooch is one of a menagerie of household pets beamed up one night for alien experimentation. (This PG-rated entertainment comes perilously close to busting out the probes.) Returned home with the ability to fly and speak in a recognisably Wilsonian drawl, Charlie resolves to use his superpowers for good – becoming, if you will, Bark Kent. This indulges in more of the movies’ virulent anti-cat propaganda: neighbour’s puss Puddy (Ruairi MacDonald) breaks bad, pledging to punish his now-cowering owner, and indeed humanity entire, for failing to empty his litter tray.
If you can forget the legacies of Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, Charlie might seem passable – Wageman is presumably hoping his audience hasn’t encountered 2009’s Bolt, where Disney did something similar with greater pizzazz. This script has one solid, funny idea – that Charlie and Puddy represent differing responses to the sentience we humans take for granted – but it gets squandered amid the usual frenetic set pieces, which zip into the eyes and immediately exit via the ears. For Wilson, who summons the howls of a canine with cacti spines in his butt and a loud belch after Charlie overdoes it with his beloved bolognese, this was doubtless an easy paycheque and a way of killing time in the wilderness. Let’s just hope this November’s ominous-looking Fockers sequel brings the earlier, funnier Owen back.
• Charlie the Wonderdog is in UK and Irish cinemas from 22 May.
