[yasr_overall_rating]
“Dog Days” follows a group of interconnected people in Los Angeles who are brought together by their lovable canine counterparts.
Like the great Florence and the Machine lyric goes, “The dog days are over.” That was all I could hope for while watching this film. We follow different groups of uncharismatic characters, that I have already forgotten the names of. The shame of it all is that they secured known names and faces for this movie which makes me beg the question, who owed some people some favors? At least I can say the redeemable character in this film would be Walter, played by Ron Cephas Jones. He was the only person I got honesty from, rather than just going through the motions.
I really wish I could look at this as a kids movie as that was its intent as well. However, there are too many things that pander to adults throughout. So I cannot even write it off as a kids movie. Which makes me question who were the filmmakers making this for? I think they’re suffering from confusion infusion because it’s hard to tell. The only thing that makes this even close to being meant for children is the dogs.
I must start this next point by saying I am a dog person and I love dogs but that doesn’t excuse this over-saturation of dogs being used in the film, just for cheap cuteness or comic relief. I don’t really feel the dogs provided anything to the narrative. The point that is trying to be made is that dogs bring people together. That’s just naive thinking though, it is just lazy storytelling. That’s what it all comes down to, this whole film was just lazy.
I wish I could have given this the benefit of the doubt, I cannot though. This is a confused movie with a cast of bland people with the exception of one. It’s really a shame because there are some talented people that are just entirely wasted. I hope the era of lazy audience pandering dog films will be finished with this one. Probably not though, but thankfully this review for the “Dog Days” is over.
In theaters Wednesday, August 8th
