The Shaggy Dog
Review by Carolyn Arends | posted 3/10/2006
 1 of 3
Heading up the Cineplex escalators to view The Shaggy Dog, I overheard the following succinct movie synopsis exchanged between two preteen boys: "You know that guy who turns into Santa Claus? This time he turns into a dog." While such an analysis may not reflect kindly on the dramatic range of Tim Allen's oeuvre, it does suggest, pretty accurately, what you can expect from The Shaggy Dog—good-natured, sometimes silly family fun that will play especially well with the under-13 set.
The Shaggy Dog is not really a remake of the old Disney human-goes-to-the-dogs movies (1959's The Shaggy Dog and 1976's The Shaggy D.A) in that none of the original characters (except the sheepdog) appear here. Instead, the movie makes use of the earlier films' basic plot device (man turns involuntarily canine at the most inopportune moments) and hauls it into the New Millennium, adding plenty of computer generated effects, throwing in a politically correct storyline about the evils of animal experimentation, and making the humor a little ruder and cruder. Still, to ensure that mom and dad will shell out those New Millennium ticket prices for the whole clan, The Shaggy Dog offers a series of dog-eared clichés about the importance of putting family first. If you buy lots of popcorn and don't think too hard, it's all reasonably entertaining and sometimes genuinely funny.
Tim Allen as Dave Douglas, in human form …
Allen (The Santa Clause, Christmas with the Kranks, Home Improvement) plays Dave Douglas, an ambitious lawyer who is counting on his current case to launch his campaign for District Attorney. While he's busy prosecuting Justin Forrester, an animal rights activist (who is also his daughter's popular history teacher) for the alleged arson of a medical research facility, his wife Rebecca (Kristin Davis, Sex in the City), daughter Carly (Zena Grey) and son Josh (Spencer Breslin, last seen with Allen as an elf in The Santa Clause 2) are feeling increasingly neglected. Even when his own daughter takes to wearing a "Free Justin Forrester, Stop Dave Douglas" T-shirt, Dave refuses to believe the defendant's improbable story about witnessing animal cruelty and genetic mutation at the medical research plant. But when a lovable sheepdog that Carly and her boyfriend have inadvertently dognapped from the lab bites Dave, the skeptical lawyer is confronted with evidence of genetic engineering he can't refute. Once he's turned into a dog, he learns a whole lot about both his case and his family. He discovers he's pretty good at fetch, too.
… and in canine form, here with a dozen roses for his wife.
Dave actually morphs backs and forth between human and hound—and the films' best comedy happens during the scenes of dog-onset when the lawyer is still in homo sapiens form but is overcome by canine instincts. Allen plays the part with all the broad gusto required, chasing cats and cars, eating cereal directly from the cereal bowl (sans spoon) and barking "my yard, my yard" at a neighbor's pug. These episodes are frequent in the courtroom, where an incredulous judge (the always funny Jane Curtin) is forced to warn Douglas not to "growl at opposing counsel." I will confess I laughed out loud more than once.
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