Movie Review

UNDERDOG

I think Wally Cox would approve. The comedian and actor, popular in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, was the original voice of Underdog on the cartoon television series.

Cox would approve of Jason Lee’s flat line delivery as the hero of the movie, a police dog with an inferiority complex due to a bad sense of smell. When the castoff police pooch gets entangled in the experiments of the evil Dr. Simon Barsinister he obtains his super powers.

What makes a superhero movie good is often the bad. Actor Peter Dinklage, as Barsinister, is excellently evil and his sidekick Cad, played by Patrick Warburton, takes deadpan to the next levels of dead and pan. “Actually, we are partners,” Warburton stoically and repeatedly corrects anyone who calls him a sidekick. (You may remember Patrick Warburton as Putty on the Seinfeld television show or probably his greater role as the guy who gives the video instructions before the Soarin' Over California ride at California Adventure in Disneyland.)

Jim Balushi gives a solid performance as Dan Unger, the retired police officer and single parent, who shows us that human underdogs can step up and show their bravery when it comes to the safety of others. It’s a touching moment in the movie when his teenage son Jack Unger, played by Alex Neuberger, realizes that his Dad is both intelligent and brave.

One of my main complaints about Hollywood studio comedies is often the use of unnecessary storylines and character development. How many times has a forced romance ruined a good movie, leaving viewers waiting for the next laugh? There is no such extra fur and fluff in the movie Underdog, Director Frederick Du Chau gives us about ten minutes of back story in the first reel then wastes no time getting to the storyline. The editors have cut any unnecessary frames out of the movie Underdog, leaving the audience with just eighty-four minutes of laughs.

Wally Cox, who rose to fame as the main character in the television show Mr. Peepers and was a regular on Hollywood Squares, died in 1973 of a heart attack. The Underdog cartoon premiered on NBC in 1964 and stayed on the air in syndication until 1973. Underdog, the live action movie that pays homage to the cartoon, is truly funny. I know the movie is funny by the uninterrupted laughing-out-loud by my eight year old daughter Hunter and her friend Laura sitting next to me in the theatre. In fact, I noticed children of all ages throughout the theatre were very much entertained by the antics of this beleaguered yet brave beagle.

Not bird, nor plane
or even frog.
It’s just little old me –
Underdog!

Did I mention that Underdog in the movie, just as in the original television cartoon, likes to rhyme?

So it’s hip, hip, hip
and away we go.
I think Wally Cox
would have liked this show.