Hey everybody. Baby, back again to bring you yet another dog movie from a dog’s point of view, which is the floor, in case anybody out there really wants to know. You see, Gino won’t let me on the furniture in the theater. He says that just because the seats look like chew toys, and smell like chew toys, doesn’t mean they actually are chew toys. I mean, really, people. You wanna talk about your special effects, which reminds me of something else I’m not supposed to do in the theater, but let’s not talk about that right now.
I wanna play a game we like to call Baby Says. OK, I like to call Baby Says. Baby says take two steps backward. Baby says get back in that delivery truck. Deliver some more DVD’s or Blu-rays. Oh-Oh, I didn’t say Baby Says, and that spells B A R K. Baby Says send me some treats, and that spells W A G. The truth is no matter how loud I yell, and no matter how loud Gino yells at me, these movies keep showing up on our doorstep. And the latest of these movies is called Air Bud: World Pup. So I guess I better stop talkin’ about me and tell you something about the movie.
You may remember who Buddy is. He’s a golden retriever who learned how to play basketball in that first Air Bud movie. But he got bored with basketball and learned to play football in the second movie. This time around Buddy learns how to play something called soccer, but Gino says in most places they call that football. So what do they call football in most places? Well…whatever they call it, they just better stay away from MY BALL, and that spells G R O W L.
In this film Josh is still played by that Kevin Zegers kid, but it doesn’t look like too many of the other characters or actors are the same. I can’t really speak to Buddy himself; we dogs gotta stick together, you know? Buddy falls in love with a new retriever in the neighborhood. What’s wrong? Weren’t there any cute German Shepherds around the place? Anyway, Buddy starts sneaking off to spend time with a dog named Molly. It’s a good thing, too, because Josh likes Molly’s pal Emma. But there’s trouble in Molly and Emma’s house. A rogue dogcatcher has infiltrated the house disguised as something called a butler. We don’t have anybody like that at our place. Gino says that English folks use them to open doors and serve food and stuff. Hey, what do you know? I think I got two of them right here. Does that make me British like Emma and her dad? Anyway, this spy is there to try and catch the dogs. If they had my Baby On Board Security, I would have caught that bad guy right away, and that spells H U R T.
Meanwhile, Buddy has found another new sport to play with Molly. And for all of you Buddies films fans out there, this is a big moment for you. The Buddies get born in this one. They don’t get names yet, or anything. But they’re in danger from those bad dogcatchers. And, Buddy might even miss the championship game trying to rescue the new pups. You can expect all of the same stuff from the other movies. There’s a lot of stuff where Buddy plays soccer. There’s a lot of kids and dogs saving the day. And a ton of humans falling down. Yep, this is an Air Bud movie, all right.
The movie came out on DVD at this time because a lot of people are playing this soccer game right now in something called the World Cup. They play that every four years, which must be like cat years because dog years are 7 human years. Gino says that’s because of how long bad luck we get because we keep breaking things. Which is pretty good. I should be around a long time, because one thing I know how to do is break stuff, and that spells C R A S H.
Video
Air Bud: World Pup is something Gino calls an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The movie looked a pretty much like the last Air Bud movie to me. There’s a lot of color, especially when everybody’s playing soccer. They have all kinds of colorful uniforms on. There’s something called compression artifact sometimes. I’m not sure what that is, but Gino says it hurts the picture quality. Gino says to tell you that the black levels are average. He also says to tell you to send treats in care of Baby Sassani at …. oops. OK, I made that last part up.
Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is almost all upfront. Dogs can hear stuff a lot better than humans. But even I didn’t hear much of anything going on behind me. And I always know what’s going on behind me. I think there was some music once in a while. I also thought I heard a swoosh every now and then, but that might have just been my tail. You could hear the people talking and Buddy barking, so everything you need was right up front the whole time.
Special Features
The Buddies Sports Channel: (5:04) The Buddies have a sports show like ESPN’s Sportscenter, and they take a look at the highlights from the movie. They should have let me do it.
Production Featurette: (5:04) This one is a little too short to show more than just people who where in the movie talking about how much fun they had. They didn’t let the doggies say anything, though.
Final Thoughts:
I know there are still some more Air Bud movies that might be coming out on new DVD’s. I hope they keep puttin’ stuff in the package, too. So far I got a neat dog tag for Mom, a whistle that even humans can hear, and now I got something called a sport cinch bag. I don’t really know what it’s for or how to use it, but it looks pretty and is real smooth. I can tell you what a real cinch is, though. It’s a cinch that your pups are going to want to keep watching these Air Bud and Buddies movies with their own dogs curled up with them on the couch … unless you have the rawhide kind, then you probably don’t let your doggies go up there. We can dream anyway, can’t we? Baby Says buy this one for your own pups. This movie will even help your own pups learn how to count. Watch me, “1 retriever, 2 retrievers…”
