Movie Review: Underdog (beagle, boy, family, superpowers)

Underdog: Saving the World, One Paw at a Time (Disney, 82 minutes, 2007, Rated PG)

“Look, it’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a frog!”

“No. It’s Underdog!”

If you didn’t grow up with Underdog, or if your kids didn’t, here is your chance to get caught up on modern canine culture from the very beginning. Underdog is truly a classic and a delight for the entire family. It is a movie that I will gladly watch again.

A rookie talking beagle* on the police force doesn’t ‘make it’ (and neither does his cop, John Belushi) – a rookie pup, competing with the three experienced talking German Shepherd Dogs.

But our hero, Shoeshine, can smell food in a can in a cupboard, can open cans with a squeeze of his teeth, can even fly (but has to learn how to fly straight).

Underdog has Everything

Would you believe a Chinese Crested (that’s a dog) in a secret science lab, a leopard-skinned Dachshund, a Rottie, a Frenchie, a bulldog-type, a black dog, a girl named Molly and her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Polly, and, of course, the requisite mad scientist. Oh, and throw in Jay Leno. And a single dad (former cop now security guard) and K9 Police Dog (now, a pet).

The Plot

“Let’s kidnap the mayor!”

“There’s no need to fear. Underdog is here.”

When the boy plays hooky, chaos ensues as the dog, our hero, Shoeshine, slowly learns his superpowers** and learns to harness them (some, though, he never gets the hang of: flying without bumping into everything and through everything!). Our hero speaks English along with a little Chihuahua and some Retriever but his Shih Tzu is a bit rusty.

DogEvals Loves Shoeshine!

Easy jokes for us older folks. And, of course, a lesson to be learned about family and home but astute jokes that fly by so quickly it’s hard to remember them.

See John Belushi as an older father to an older middle school boy and Samantha Bee as a middle school principal!

There is even some romance – of the canine kind. And the middle school kind, too.

Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” Is. . . . a Dog?

Yup.

*a nose connected to four paws and a constantly wagging tail

** how our hero gets his superpowers is something that I will not reveal

Dogs courtesy of Boone’s Animals (movies, TV shows, commercials and more: The Parent Trap, Hachi, Must Love Dogs, Pirates of the Caribbean)