It’s another foul day and the rain is hammering on the roof
of the registration tent as they give out the pre-race briefing. I am sure you
can imagine the gallows humour. I just hope it's better tomorrow.
L appears to have the perfect ‘take you mind off your
uber-event’ idea, a good old weepie. A Dog's Purpose is out. The latest showing
is at Cineworld is 4:40pm but we get a move on and make it in time and of course
this means we can all be tucked up nice and early in bed afterwards. Wa-Hey.
A Dog's Purpose is all about the finding the meaning of life
for dogs, yes really. It is based on the book by W Bruce Cameron.
Our canine star is first a homeless puppy on the streets who
is caught, taken to the dog pound and euthanised. Nice start. He is then born
into a second life where initially it doesn’t look like he’s going to fair much
better when a couple of bin men leave him to cook in their vehicle. He is
rescued by a young boy called Ethan (Bryce Gheisar) and his mother (Juliet
Rylance). It is at their house that our hero, now called Bailey, makes his home
despite the reluctance of the boy’s miserable and alcoholic father (Luke Kirby).
With his paws under the table Bailey (voiced by Josh Gad)
has a good long life while all the time trying to work out why he’s here and
how entertaining he can be with a flat leather football.
Of course his owner Ethan (now played by KJ Apa) has to go
and self destruct as people always do in this sort of film. Ethan’s football
career goes awry due to injury so he thinks why not make myself even more miserable
by sacking my girlfriend, the lovely Hannah (Britt Robertson), for no good
reason. Oh go on then. We can always get back together at the end of the film.
Bailey sadly dies of old age and be warned, by the very
nature of its plot there's an awful lot of doggie death in this film.
Then Bailey, or whatever he’s called now, is back again and
again. Each time as a different breed, sometimes with a different gender but
always with the same off-camera voice. He becomes a police dog before being owned
by a lonely student, neglected by a young couple and then as a faithful
companion to a farmer.
Each rebirth is with decreasing effect, cheesier jokes and
shorter storylines. Ultimately this makes the film a complete mish-mash as there
is never enough time spent in each of the dogs’ or humans’, not that you'd want
to. However, none of this is important because the whole point is to take the
dog eventually back to the beginning.
So eventually he returns to Ethan (now Dennis Quaid), who
still has the same flat leather football in his garage, and surprise surprise he
is still down on his luck. I might as well spell it out because you will, no
doubt, have already gathered what this particular dog’s purpose is. Namely to
get Ethan and Hannah (now Peggy Lipton) back together.
Mission accomplished then. Many tears will be shed and not
just over such a terrible plot, holding onto your lunch may not be so easy.
A nice idea for a film maybe, but poorly executed and to be
honest a bit of an insult to dogs and their owners.
(Saturday 20th May)
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