Movie Review: The Dog who Saved the Holidays (yellow labs, pup, Christmas, family)

The Dog Who Saved the Holidays (Anchor Bay Studio, DVD, 2012, 87 minutes)

What could be better at Christmas than a family and a dog (or two) or, better yet, a movie about a family and a dog or two.

The Dog Who Saved the Holidays is a sequel* to The Dog Who Saved Christmas (2009) and The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation (starring the voice of Paris Hilton as a poodle)(2010).

Home Alone for the Holidays

The original, The Dog Who Saved Christmas, is a take-off of Home Alone but with a delightfully smart and sometimes naughty yellow lab, Zeus, in place of the boy. The Dog Who Saved the Holidays again features the lovable Bannister family from Connecticut, this time visiting a wealthy aunt in California who gives the family an early Christmas present – a yellow lab puppy, Eve, who manages to steal the thunder from our hero Zeus who is blamed for everything the puppy does. Zeus decides to leave but the movie happens before he has the chance to.

Bumbling Burglars

Each movie also features Ted and Stewey, a bumbling pair of burglar wanna-be’s if ever there was. Slapstick humor abounds for boys watching the series who will also dissect the mistakes, puppy love satisfies the girls and women, and men will savor the fact that the whole family is together watching a movie. The Bannisters are delightfully inept, from father and mother to the two kids, a girl and a boy.

Lab lovers everywhere will be glued to the screen.

Quasi Spoiler Alert: For those viewers who don’t like talking dogs, this movie has them though it is their thoughts that are verbalized: their mouths do not move. And often, the dogs’ actions and words are less than synchronous. Nevertheless, it is a delightful family flick.

Over and Over Again

I’ve seen this movie twice and liked it better the second time. At that rate, I should give it five stars in 2016. And all my respect goes to the lab, a former rescue dog and female, who plays Zeus in all three movies. Michael Gross, Jack Scalia and Shelley Long also have roles in this canine flick.

*A sequel to The Dog Who Saved Christmas, The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation aired on ABCFamily in 2010. The Dog Who Saved Halloween was released directly to DVD in 2011; The Dog Who Saved the Holidays, in 2012; The Dog Who Saved Easter, in 2104; and The Dog Who Saved Summer, in 2015.