Gino likes to listen to some guy named Warren Zevon who says that all of the werewolves are in someplace called London. He also sings a song that says “Don’t knock on my door, if you don’t know my Rottweiler’s name”. Well … I ain’t no stinkin’ Rottweiler, and you know my name; it’s Baby. But I wouldn’t knock anyway, ‘specially if you are trying to deliver more of these movies. I don’t know what the Rottweiler’s planning to do, but I promise I’m not going to lick you, and that spells B I T E. Don’t you guys know we got too many movies in here already? How am I going to get any playtime in if you keep bringing more movies over here? Gino says that if you stop bringing the movies, he might not make any money. He says if they don’t make any money, he can’t buy any more treats. He calls that a catch 22. But the problem is while he’s in there watching movies, my ball stays where it is, and I’m not catchin’ anything. Since beggin’ is beneath me, I guess I’m just gonna have to let somebody have it one of these days, and that spells O U C H.
Hey everybody. Baby, back again to bring you yet another dog movie from a dog’s perspective. Ever since I was a little puppy I liked readin’ those funnies in the paper. For some reason there was a lot of those things layin’ around the place for a while. Since a dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do, I would take a look at the comics while I took care of some business. Now what that business was, is none of your business, and that spells W E T. One of my favorite strips was this one called Marmaduke. Now, that dog is one funny cat, and that spells B I G. He was always gettin’ into some kind of trouble or other. I always figured we’d get along great, because I get yelled at all the time, too. Anyway, the strip’s been around since 1954. That’s a whole lot of dog years ago. It was written by a guy named Brad Anderson. That means a lot of those comics were written, and a lot of fans must be out there. So now they’ve decided to create a whole movie based on Marmaduke. And, guess who got to watch it. That’s right. Me, Baby.
The story doesn’t really seem to have much to do with those comics I read when I was a puppy. Marmaduke (Wilson) lives with a family in Kansas. Yeah, that’s were Toto used to live. Everybody seems to like it there until Dad (Pace) gets a new job that pays a ton of treats out in California. The family doesn’t really want to go, but if that’s where the treats are, that’s where they’re going to go. He ends up working for a boss (Macy) who likes to have his meetings at the dog park. I kind of like this guy already. He says you can tell a lot about a human by observing how he treats his dog. Did ya hear that, Gino? The company is a natural dog food company. I think maybe that means they have natural food like squirrels. It’s up to Marmaduke’s dad to put together a campaign to get the stuff into Petco. That’s easy. I’ve been in Petco lots of times. I don’t go anymore. There was this incident with a poodle who was trying to jack some kibble and so I gave him the bits. I don’t wanna talk about that right now. So, Dad is pretty much ignoring his family and has to learn the value of his pack.
Nah, that’s not the real story. It’s the story of Marmaduke, who is always getting into trouble even though he means well. His best friend is his cat Carlos (Lopez). I didn’t really get that part. When Marmaduke gets to the new dog park, he finds out the place is segregated. Okay, so Gino helped me out with that word. It means the dogs are split into two. The purebred dogs get to have the nice spots while the mutts have to settle for the other places. The park is run by a mean old dog named Bosco (Sutherland) He’s a bully and only lets the purebred dogs around his place. His girlfriend is a collie named Jezebel (Fergie). Marmaduke likes her, but she’s a bit too rich for his blood. See, he’s a Great Dane, but he has other types of dog in him, too. I guess you could call him a Good Dane. You see Mazie (Stone) really likes Marmaduke, and she’s kinda more in his league. Marmaduke has to find his way back to the important things just like Dad did.
The dogs can talk in this movie, but only to each other. The humans can’t hear them. They haven’t learned to write like I do. Their voices come from some pretty good humans like George Lopez, Owen Wilson, Kieffer Sutherland, and Sam Elliott plays a scary dog called the Chupadogra. Their lips move through something Gino calls CGI. I like CGI. I watch it all of the time. My favorite is CGI: New York. It really does look like they are really talking. The problem with the whole movie is it makes you think that dogs are all about peeing and making gas. We do other things too. Just ask the UPS guy who comes around here. And that spells G R O W L. I guess the movie is okay for your pups. But, I think the grown-up adults will find it pretty dumb. I watched Gino and Mom during the movie and they kept giving it the kind of looks that they give me when I help them retrieve stuff in the trash they must have accidentally thrown away. I think that’s not so good for the chances you big humans will like the movie. There are a lot of cute parts, but it really doesn’t excite this dog like other dog movies have in the past. Only get this for your pups, and you sneak away and give your dogs belly rubs, and that spells W A G.
Video
Marmaduke is something Gino calls an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The image is something called 1080p and I don’t even wanna know what the p stands for. It’s got an AVC/MPEG-4 bit rate. (I have something called a BABY bite rate.) The movie looks very bright and shiny most of the time. This high definition stuff is pretty cool. It looked awfully real to these doggie eyes. Even the dark scenes looked really good. I could see lots of shadow and details just like real life. I guess this movie was made by a dog, because we see real good in the dark. The people’s faces look all natural like. The best thing is the colors. There are so many of them, and they all look just like nice new doggie toys. I give it a paws-up.
Audio
The Dolby Digital 5.1 really barks. You would think that you were hearing dogs everywhere. I wasn’t the only one doing any woofing either. The sub was really loud and made the room shake a little. There was some rain, and it scared me a little. See, I got this problem with thunder, and this stuff sounded pretty real to me. Okay, I’m not really afraid of that stuff, but you should see all of the attention it gets me. Gino says to tell you that you can hear both the humans and the dogs talking.
Special Features
All of this stuff is in HD.
Home Movies: (3:28) The Brian character shows us some movies of when Carlos and Marmaduke were little. They don’t talk here; just Brian.
Marmaduke Mayhem: (2:40) It’s just a gag reel.
Deleted Scenes: (9:28) There are 8, and you can do that play-all thing.
Cowabarka: (5:17) This is a behind-the-scenes look at how they did the dog surfing stuff. I asked Gino if I could surf. He asked me if I’ve ever seen Jaws. Sure I have. Every time I look in the mirror. Wanna see?
Canine Casting:(2:49) This one shows how they auditioned the dogs. I gotta study that a little bit. This face oughta be in pictures.
Trailer
A DVD Copy of the film.
Final Thoughts:
I’m sorry to say this wasn’t my favorite doggie movie. It wasn’t even in the top ten, and yes, I can count to ten. I think they were trying to be like those new Chipmunks movies. Now chipmunks are something I could get excited about. Skip the movie and take your kids to the beach or someplace. Oh, don’t forget the dog, too. I don’t think I found I had that much in common with Marmaduke, so it wasn’t very realistic. Oh, there was one thing. “I get yelled at a lot.”
