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Clifford is cute, cuddly and chaotic: Movie Review

Photo: Paramount Pictures
Photo: Paramount Pictures

He’s big! He’s playful! And he’s a lot to handle! The execution of Paramount’s new Clifford the Big Red Dog has all the same qualities of its title character: big, messy, and equal parts cute and problematic.

Inspired by the Scholastic book series, this is the first live-action Clifford movie. It’s a new version of Clifford’s origins with his young owner Emily Elizabeth (Darby Camp), both in how they meet in Manhattan and how he grows to be so big.

Clifford, as a big-screen production, is oddly charming. When the script isn’t try to be funny, the concept and the cast are sweet, honest and compelling to watch. Unfortunately, the bland and unfunny script spends more time trying to tell jokes than it does trying to tell a realistic story.

Nearly none of the attempts at humour are successful. Even worse, the speech patterns in the adult characters sound cartoonishly fake, while the kids sound like they’re only talking the way adults think kids do. Have any of the four writer credited on the screenplay listened to actual people before?

Most of the cast gets one or two winning moments, but the surprising scene-stealer is 11-year-old Izaac Wang as Emily Elizabeth’s friend Owen. His comedic timing is flawless and he often outshines his adult co-stars.

You might think realism isn’t important in a movie about a ten-foot tall red dog, but in stories with fantasy elements like this it’s actually more important; it helps the audience believe in what’s larger than life. The CGI animated Clifford is believably real - it’s the nutty scenarios he and Emily Elizabeth get into that are so implausibly fake.

Director Walt Becker has yet to make a well crafted film in his 20-year career, with misfires including Van Wilder, Old Dogs, and his biggest blunder, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip. Clifford is still misguided and misdirected, but the sincerity of its story and actors makes this, by default, his best movie yet.

Another consistent problem both here and in the family genre is overused reliance on toilet jokes as the main source of humour. There are several gags and one-liners about pee, poop, farts, peeing on people, and as Kenan Thompson the veterinarian says, jokes about Clifford’s place “that rhymes with nut hole.”

But none of this matters to the target audience of young children. The “how” matters much less than the “what”, and potty jokes aside, the story is approachable, appropriate and engaging for young kids.

This would be a harmless and enjoyable first movie for toddlers going on their first-ever outing to the cinema. That alone is worthwhile because there are surprisingly few movies that make good candidates for this.

Kids won’t be able to stop gushing over how sweet Clifford is. Adults won’t be able to stop rolling their eyes. It’s unlikely anyone will laugh, but it’s likely the kids will have a lot of fun. On rare occasions, that’s enough.

Clifford the Big Red Dog

5 out of 10

G. 1hr 37mins. Family Comedy.

Directed by Walt Becker.

Starring Darby Camp, Jack Whitehall, Izaac Wang, Tony Hale, Sienna Guillory and John Cleese.

Now Playing at Film.Ca Cinemas, 5 Drive-In, Cineplex Winston Churchill and Cineplex Oakville & VIP.