‘Snow Dogs’ mush ado about not much

loading...

In theaters

SNOW DOGS, directed by Brian Levant, written by Jim Kouf, Tommy Swerdlow, Michael Goldberg, Mark Gibson and Philip Halprin, loosely based on the book “Winterdance” by Gary Paulsen, 99 minutes, rated PG.

In spite of what its PG rating implies, Disney’s “Snow Dogs” is for children – very young children – preferably those who haven’t seen many movies and thus won’t be disappointed in what Hollywood has done to Cuba Gooding Jr. and James Coburn, Oscar winners who do their best to turn this mush into a reasonably enjoyable mess.

If “Snow Dogs” works at all – and sometimes it works better than it should -it’s because of Gooding and Coburn, who deliver such energetic performances and have such solid chemistry on-screen, they overcome Brian Levant’s lackluster direction and an uninspired script credited to no fewer than five writers.

In the film, Gooding is Ted Brooks, a popular Miami dentist taken by surprise when he learns he’s not the son of Amelia (“Star Trek’s” Nichelle Nichols) – but the son of someone else.

In a whirlwind series of events that could only happen in a movie, Ted is plucked out of his Porsche Boxter and summoned to the wilds of Alaska, where he lands in the tiny hamlet of Tolketna and discovers his recently deceased birth mother Lucy, whom he never knew existed, was a cabin-dwelling loner who owned a champion dog-sled team.

Inheriting Lucy’s cabin and her rambunctious team of dogs is one thing, but Ted also must contend with the pratfalls of the fish-out-of-water comedy. Throughout “Snow Dogs,” he’s periodically dragged through the snow, tackled by the dogs, thrown off a mountaintop, chased by bear and bitten in the booty.

Amazingly, none of what happens to him is as unnerving as the day he meets Thunder Jack (Coburn), a squinting, unsavory hulk of mean-mouthed frostiness who once knew Ted’s mother – and now wants her dogs.

With Joanna Bacalso as Ted’s sunny love interest and R&B singer Sisqo as his dim cousin, “Snow Dogs” eventually builds to a dog-sledding event modeled after the Alaskan Iditarod, where director Levant tries to whip his film into a froth as Ted’s not-so-excellent adventure carries him through an icy blast of snow on the tails of eight running dogs.

Unlike Disney’s last film, the superior “Monsters, Inc.,” “Snow Dogs” doesn’t offer much, but, to be fair, it had the youngest viewers at my screening cheering and laughing until the end.

Grade: C+

On video and DVD

RAT RACE, Directed by Jerry Zucker, Written by Andy Breckman, 112 minutes, rated PG-13.

After an uninspired opening that establishes a been-there, laughed-at-that premise, Jerry Zucker’s “Rat Race” builds to one of the more outrageously funny comedies Hollywood produced last year.

It knows exactly what it wants to be – a silly screwball chase movie modeled after Stanley Kramer’s “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World,” Blake Edwards’ “The Great Race” and the Mack Sennett comedies of the silent era.

What’s better? Unlike so many recent comedies, “Rat Race” doesn’t dip into the toilet bowl to pluck out its laughs. Instead, its comedy hinges on a series of nonstop sight gags, many of which had the audience at my screening last summer literally in tears.

The cast – including John Cleese, Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Lovitz, Rowan Atkinson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Seth Green, Lanai Chapman, Kathy Bates and Breckin Meyer – is in fine form, taking to the screen with an eagerness that suggests they’re more than up for the considerable absurdities Andy Breckman is shucking in his script.

In the film, a group of people staying at a Las Vegas hotel win the chance to win $2 million, which an eccentric casino owner played by Cleese has stuffed into a duffel bag and hidden 700 miles away in Silver City, N.M. To the highways and byways these people flee, losing along the way their sanity, their tempers, their lunches and – more often than not – their self-respect.

Zucker, who first hit the collective funny bone as one of the co-directors of “Airplane!” and “Ruthless People” before moving on to direct “Ghost” and “First Knight” on his own, deftly keeps things moving with an energy that only sputters toward the end, which is a misstep.

Still, there’s much to be admired here. Whether Zucker is featuring Goldberg and Chapman in a runaway rocket car that breaks the sound barrier, Lovitz drugging his family after he convinces them to steal Hitler’s car, or Gooding running from a wailing band of Lucille Ball impersonators, the film’s increasingly insane tone is sustained with hilarious results.

Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays on “News Center at 5” and Thursdays at “News Center at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

THE VIDEO-DVD CORNER

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Lisa Picard is Famous ? B

Kiss of the Dragon ? B-

Rock Star ? B

American Pie 2 ? C+

Bubble Boy ? F

Glitter ? D

Sound and Fury ? A

Jeepers Creepers ? D

The Fast and the Furious ? B

The Glass House ? C

Greenfingers ? B-

What’s the Worse that Could

Happen ? D

The Center of the World ? C

Evolution ? D-

Two Can Play

That Game ? C+

Moulin Rouge ? A-

The Princess Diaries ? C+

Scary Movie 2 ? D

Hedwig and the

Angry Inch ? A

Jurassic Park III ? B-

Lost & Delirious ? C-

Rush Hour 2 ? D

The Score ? B

American Outlaws ? F

Ghost of Mars ? C-

Pearl Harbor ? D

Summer Catch ? C-

Bread and Roses ? A-

Divided We Fall ? A

Made ? B

Pootie Tang ? D+

Osmosis Jones ? C-

Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch

Stole Christmas ? D+

Planet of the Apes ? C-

America’s Sweethearts ? D+

crazy/beautiful ? B

Tomb Raider ? D+

Doctor Zhivago

(DVD debut) ? A-

The Golden Bowl ? C+

Legally Blonde ? B+

Shrek ? A-

Aimee & Jaguar ? A

The Animal ? B

Swordfish ? C