Old dog ‘Marmaduke’ needs a few new tricks

Marmaduke and Carlos from "Marmaduke" “Marmaduke” (voiced by Owen Wilson) and Carlos the cat (voiced by George Lopez) head to California for stupid pet tricks.

“Wait for it,” the Great Dane tells us. “Wait – for – it!”

Then he passes doggy gas on his human owners, who cough and choke on his bodily discharge.

“Marmaduke” begins this way, and ends the same way with the Great Dane letting his wind rip on his hapless humans again.

“It never gets old!” the dog chuckles.

Sorry, Marmaduke, but it was even old back when Shrek did it in the mud puddle.

“Marmaduke” is the kind of family entertainment that gives family entertainment a bad name.

Its dumbed-down script, woefully shallow story, ridiculous action sequences and cheap bathroom humor might be diverting for extremely young children, but why would most parents want to expose their kids to a movie written way beneath their level?

Marmaduke, of course, is the beloved giant canine from the popular comic strip. In this movie, Owen Wilson provides the dog with his affable, cornpone personality, forced not only to incessantly narrate every detail of the film’s opening scenes, but to deliver moldy, obvious jokes such as “I’m all ears. Literally!”

Apparently, there’s not enough trouble for a dog to get into while living in Kansas, so the screenplay moves Marmaduke’s family, the Winslows, to Los Angeles where Phil the dad (Lee Pace) gets a job with the Bark organic food company run by William H. Macy, who can barely utter his pandering dialogue without wincing with embarrassment. (Read more…)

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