An adventure racer adopts a stray dog named Arthur to join him in an epic endurance race.
Michael (Mark Wahlberg) is a serious adventure racer who has never won a race due to his poor leadership. He is determined to make one last go at it, though, and assembles a team to help him. During the race, they meet a stray dog who joins their group, and they decide to call him Arthur.
The first third of the film is spent with Wahlberg feeling bad for himself and trying to rally people to join his adventure team. He wants to win one of these races more than anything, but I never really understood why. The audience knows he has lost multiple races, but just crossing the finish line is a huge accomplishment since these courses consist of hiking, biking, kayaking, and climbing over a 400+ mile span.
I have to say that I found the acting and dialogue pretty stiff in some scenes involving Wahlberg, especially with co-star Simu Liu, who plays Leo, a rising social media influencer—their characters frequently butt heads. I did like the other two teammates, however. Nathalie Emmanuel plays Olivia, an expert climber who does the race to honor her dad. Ali Suliman plays Chik; he’s a pro nursing a bad knee. There is not much, if any, depth to these characters, though.
I think the film correctly captures how arduous this race is. It spans multiple days, and you can tell the team is hurting, hungry, and sleep-deprived at various points. In terms of “action,” there’s not much of that, but the film has some climbing and zipline sequences that are more thrilling than watching them run and bike.
The dog who plays Arthur eventually managed to endear me, though it took a while, honestly. Most dog movies are emotionally manipulative; no one likes to see an animal in peril, and this is no different.
Arthur doesn’t join Wahlberg and Co. until about halfway through the film. At first, the team dismisses the dog, but as they continue to see him across the trek, they realize the dog is a survivor. The dog saves the team a few times. However, Wahlberg is more caring towards the dog than the other teammates. It would have played better if the others were more interactive with the dog.
Overall, the predictable nature of this story is the film’s biggest downfall. If you know a dog is front and center of a movie, you have a good idea about how it is going to play out, and well, that happens here.
In Theaters Friday, March 15th
