Dog’s aren’t actors. I’m not sure why I have to explain this to people. And yet here is another film in which the dog is expected to act. A Dog’s Way Home solved this little problem with CGI; need an expression not found in the animal world? Need some inter-species playfulness that you can’t actually find in nature? Well, check it out, A Dog’s Way Home goes through the room with the green screen.
Bella (voice of Bryce Dallas Howard) wasn’t born “Bella,” of course. In fact, her sordid history includes several homeless shelters and a cat mother. It’s a little clumsy, but I think we’re supposed to take from this empathy for the homeless. OK, I can dig that. So let me get this straight, movie, you want me to form an emotional bond with … cats? Whoa! Whoa! That’s a tall request. I kid, of course. I own a cat, and she’s nearly among the top fifty most delightful elements of our household. Well, certainly the top hundred.
Anyway, two Denver-based goody-goodies, Lucas (Jonah Hauer-King) and Olivia (Alexandra Shipp), champion the cause of some semi-domestic quadrupeds living in what’s left of a collapsed house. Animal control has taken mama dog and most of her pups, yet somehow missed Bella and about 17 cats, but called it a win and split the scene. Lucas immediately adopts Bella, but leaves the cats alone, cuz, you know, cats. Oh, Lucas and Olivia will go to the mat to make sure the cats don’t get bulldozed, but actually providing them with decent shelter and homes? Hey, they showed sympathy to cats, isn’t that enough?
Lucas loves to take Bella to the VA hospital so that the film can pander to an entirely new breed of viewer: veterans. And as the VA becomes a veterinary clinic, we are introduced to the bad people: rogue animal service cops and VA administrators. Folks, it doesn’t get more evil than people who seek to limit human-canine love. Of course, the whole point here is to trump up some stupid way of separating Lucas and Bella so that we can fulfill the trailer’s destiny. Oh, and here it is: the stupidest of stupid ways – Bella is blindly labeled a “pit bull,” which means she can’t be outdoors in Denver without being subject to empoachment by the law. Is that a word? I don’t care.
Yadda yadda yadda, Bella is lost in the Rockies and befriends a cougar. No, not Lucas’ mom (Ashley Judd), but a real and not-at-all CGI cougar (aka puma, aka wildcat, aka mountain lion, aka land squid, aka fur turtle, aka fanged macaw …). This is, of course, an homage to cat fans who missed the first five minutes while standing in the line for popcorn. So the question becomes: how do we get Bella home to Lucas while avoiding danger, losing collar after collar, and honoring this bizarre and unnatural relationship between a domesticated canine and a dangerous zoo animal?
I liked A Dog’s Way Home better than the 2017 version of this same film, A Dog’s Purpose. Both movies -and twenty more in the works just like them- are all about our justified love for dogs, the trials they endure when we’re not around, and the cheesy inner dialogue they have in which we pretend they’re all just innocent humans, which, in a way, I suppose they are. I doubt I’m ever going to like a film manufactured completely from invented controversy and dialogue that causes eyeroll headaches, but I did indeed want to see Bella reunited with the VA gang. This film didn’t satisfy me, but it almost certainly will satisfy your small dog-lovin’ child.
♪Lucas had a dog
He found it on a lot
He called the pooch “Bella”
Cuz he was tired of “Spot”
The City Pound said, “no”
Bella got swept away
And then she had adventures
That were totes cra-cra
And the dog came back
She wandered for some years
She made it back to city
Allaying all our fears
The dog came back
The trailer didn’t fib
In a “surprise” ending
Caught between “cliché” and “glib”
Bella found a cat
Among the Rockies true
Cougars aren’t quite like that
But whatchagonnado?
BFFs those two companions
They will forever be
‘Til Bella remembers Lucas
Towards the ending of Act III
Yeah, the dog came back
You knew should would some day
That’s why we spent a tenner
On this matinee
The dog came back
The trailer didn’t lie
If you have a heart
You are surely going to cry♫
Rated PG, 96 Minutes
Director: Charles Martin Smith
Writer: W. Bruce Cameron & Cathryn Michon
Genre: Something the cat dragged in
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Dog lovers, pre-pubescent children
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Cynics
♪ Parody Inspired by “The Cat Came Back”
