I don't know who decides which movies qualify to be put in the genre for children, but whoever is doing it must not have kids. There are certain things you expect from a movie that you find in the children's section. You don't want your child being exposed to sex, violence and even too much emotional trauma.
Something fun, easygoing, lighthearted is what we look for. Unfortunately you just can't trust the film makers to provide it. With movies like Pokemon and shows like the Simpsons being targeted towards children you have to wonder why they can't prey on something their own size.
My Dog Skip is a movie that luckily escapes this for the most part. I have high standards when it comes to children's movies. I also have young children and when I rent a movie for them I don't expect for it to send my kids into depression or give them nightmares.
The makers of this movie clearly set out to make clean family entertainment. That was their goal and they achieved it. It is nice to see an effort being made.
The story centers around a young boy who is a bit of an outcast. He doesn't seem to fit in and his only friend is the highschool football star who lives next door. Unfortunately he gets shipped out to war and that leaves him all alone.
Subscribing to the very popular idea that "a dog is a man's best friend" his Mom decides this is exactly what he needs. Even though it means overriding her husband's wishes she insists that he keep the dog and the movie is off....
From this point on we basically see the dog coming to this boy's aid time and again. He helps him overcome his fear of the bullies and even make friends with them. He manages to even get the girl thanks to Skip and his flirtatious nature. By the end of the movie he is playing baseball and enjoying a well adjusted childhood thanks to this dog.
I have to say for the record that while I did enjoy this movie I also felt that it was too reminscent of some other family films I have seen. Although we want and need to see more true family films being added to the pot, you'd like for them to be original and not merely mirror images of what's been done before.
This movie wanted to be "My girl" and "Stand by Me" in so many ways. The setting, the voice over narration packed with life lessons and even the musical score that permeated the background were way too familiar.
Harry Connick Jr. narrated the movie playing the part of the boy grown up. I did not know who was reading this part at first but I knew Kevin Bacon was playing the boy's father.
For some reason the voice of Harry Connick Jr. and the voice that Kevin Bacon uses when he is faking a southern accent were so similar that throughout this whole movie I kept wondering why in the world they would use Kevin Bacon to narrate the movie when he was already playing the father.
This was my mistake because as the credits were rolling I realized it was not in fact him. Under normal circumstances I would have never thought the two actors sounded alike but for some reason it seemed so here.
Because this movie was billed as a true story it is a bit difficult to criticize some of the plot. If it had been total fiction then I would have an easier time but if something happened that way in real life then what can you do? They did choose to turn it into a movie though and so I have to say that there were a few things I would have changed.
First of all there have been a lot of movies made where someone is being bullied however the scenes especially in the beginning just seemed a bit harsh. Maybe I am too sensitive but my daughter was really bothered by it. At one point she asked me to turn off the movie altogether.
There were 2 scenes that especially bothered me in relation to the dog. One thing I hate about animal movies is that something always seems to happen to the animal. Either they kill it off or someone abuses it. I have never understood this. Sure it might be the way life really is but I don't go to movies like this for a dose of reality. I go to be entertained and escape reality for a few hours.
In one scene the boy hits the dog. I really didn't like this at all and neither did my kids. Now they do show in this scene where everyone tends to look down on him for having done this however I still felt that whatever point they were making could have been done in a better way without smacking the dog.
Soon after this the dog almost meets his fate at one end of a shovel (this time not by the boy). We were almost at the end of this movie but by this time my young daughter had had enough trauma for one day. Earlier in the movie they had shown a deer being killed and the bullet wound as it lay dying. Luckily I saw that one coming and had her leave for a few minutes.
The film ends with the boy going off to college. The last scenes of the movie are just narration and showing the dog as it has aged and eventually dies. No matter how good or bad this movie was if you kill a dog I'm going to cry. This doesn't mean you're a good film maker. It means you killed off the dog and any person with half a heart is going to cry over that.
I know this review makes it sound as if I did not like this movie but that is not the case. It's just that it stole too much from other movies and had some scenes that seemed they could have been done in a way as to make this movie less of a downer. It also seems like a cheap shot when a film maker is so desperate to pull tears out of his crowd that he has to off the dog.
The previews really made it seem like a comedy so I was a bit surprised at how heavy it ended up being especially for the younger crowd. I love kids movies that have animals as the main characters. For me a better movie with more originality and a lot more humour and enjoyability for the younger ones would be The Incredible Adventure, Homeward Bound 1 and 2 or even Napoleon.
A shy boy is unable to make friends in Yazoo City, Mississippi in 1942,until his parents give him a terrier puppy for his ninth birthday. Thedog, whic...More at HotMovieSale.com
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