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Hotel for Dogs Our rating: Rate this movie   MPAA rating: PG (for brief mild thematic elements, language and some crude humor) Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Family Theater release: January 16, 2009 by Paramount Pictures Directed by: Thor Freudenthal Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes Cast: Emma Roberts (Andi), Jake T. Austin (Bruce), Don Cheadle (Bernie), John Simmons (Dave), Lisa Kudrow (Lois Scudder), Kevin Dillon (Carl Scudder) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Hotel for Dogs offers just the sort of kibble that makes the children in my family sit up and beg to go to the movies: A lovable assortment of pooches get into various kinds of doggy trouble, only to ultimately be saved by an equally lovable collection of up-and-coming teenage actors. What's not to love?

In truth, there's quite a bit not to love in Hotel for Dogs, including numerous plot holes, an erratic moral compass, and an inconsistent tone. Fortunately, the clever premise (taken loosely from Lois Duncan's 1971 children's story of the same name), the likeability of the leads, and the irresistible charm of the dogs keep this film engaging for kids and tolerable for adults.

Emma Roberts as Andi, Jake T. Austin as Bruce

Hotel for Dogs is the story of two foster kids determined to preserve their bond with each other and their eternally hungry mutt, Friday. Since their parents died four years ago, 16-year-old Andi (Nancy Drew's Emma Roberts) and her little brother Bruce (Jake T. Austin, best known from TV's Wizards of Waverly Place) have had to fight to stay together. Despite the best efforts of a sympathetic child welfare officer (Don Cheadle), the kids have bounced from home to home and now must live with the Scudders, a pair of miserly aging rockers.   

Lois Scudder (Lisa Kudrow) is a modern-day Miss Hannigan (meets Spinal Tap); she keeps the food pantry padlocked and offers the children nothing but gruel for their two state-mandated meals per day. She also has a strict policy against pets. But Andi and Bruce know their only other option is to be moved into separate homes, so they endure their current conditions and are careful to keep their dog hidden. Things get complicated when Friday begins running repeatedly afoul of the city's Animal Control officers.

The kids stumble upon an abandoned hotel and, desperate to keep their dog safe, decide to make it Friday's new home. Soon, Bruce is using his remarkable knack for engineering to invent a variety of clever dog amenities, and the kids (with the help of some newly acquired friends) begin to rescue a growing number of the city's strays. 

Kevin Dillon as Carl, Lisa Kudrow as Lois

As the hotel is transformed into Doggy Paradise, the canines and humans form their own ragtag family. But Animal Control officials are hot on their trail, leading to an ultimate confrontation that could separate Andi, Bruce, and their beloved pet permanently.

When Hotel for Dogs is functioning as a light-hearted fantasy, it works wonderfully. Bruce's inventions are delightfully creative, and the dogs' enjoyment of them is irresistibly entertaining. Unfortunately, director Thor Freudenthal (in his first feature-length project) is constantly pushing the film into grittier, more realistic territory, making the fantastical elements seem suddenly implausible and silly. 

Sometimes Hotel for Dogs seems to want to mine a family-drama pathos evocative of films like Because of Winn-Dixie. In other scenes the movie is dragged down by heavy-handed social commentary that overplays the obvious parallels between orphans and strays. The points the filmmakers are making are good ones—family is worth fighting for, and it can be created in unlikely places—but the characters and plot are not well-developed enough to sustain anything too serious for too long. A breezier, more consistent touch would have served this movie well.

Friday, the perpetually hungry dog

The film is also undermined by a confusing approach to morality. The early scenes reveal Andi and Bruce resorting to petty crime (defrauding pawn shop owners) in order to raise the funds necessary to feed Friday. The message seems to be that it is noble to do anything to take care of someone (or something) you love—but the film does not acknowledge the difficulty the defrauded individual may face feeding his own family if he is routinely stolen from. For most of the rest of the film, authority figures (Animal Control workers, police officers and dimwitted foster parents) are at best buffoons and at worst cold-hearted killers, pushing Hotel for Dogs into sketchy "kids-always-know-best" territory.

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