Movie Review: Underdog

Underdog (2007) 

Directed by Frederik Du Chau

Written by Adam Rifkin

Starring Jason Lee, Jim Belushi, Peter Dinklage, Patrick Warburton, John Slattery, Taylor Momsen

Release Date August 3rd, 2007

Published August 3rd, 2007

Was there any need to make the 60's cartoon Underdog into a big budget live action movie? I've heard no clamor or call. No one outside the official Underdog fan club has even thought of Underdog in the near 20 years since the last reruns were exorcised from TV screens. And yet, here we are with Disney dusting off this forgotten pop culture relic with visions of the family dollar dancing in the heads of Disney accountants.

I hope they got their money's worth because we, the movie-going public, certainly do not. This 88 minute cash grab is one of the most dreary projects to come out of the Disney company since the bastardized sequels of their Pixar and other animated properties. Underdog is a deeply misguided, mercenary effort where profit trumps good taste, and stock prices are calculating on box office returns. 

Jason Lee stars as the voice of Underdog a former K9 cop turned lab rat who, after getting zapped by some chemicals, develops super powers. Escaping the lab of the evil doctor Simon Barr Sinister (slumming Station Agent star Peter Dinklage), Underdog ends taken in by a security guard (Jim Belushi) and his troubled son (Alex Neuberg). Nicknamed shoeshine for his proclivity for licking shoes, Underdog slowly learns that he has powers before the boy helps him become a superhero.

No points for for guessing that the troubled boy is healed by his new best friend and that father and son are brought closer together as they are forced to team up against Barr Sinister and his henchman Cad (Patrick Warburton). You could guess how this plot plays out without having to sit through this mind-numbing cliché of family movie drivel.

The key to such a predictable plot is trying to reinvent, or at the very least dress up, your familiar elements with jokes, action or effects. Underdog fails in all three of those attempts. The jokes of Underdog are limited to eye rolling dog puns about what dogs like to eat, where they like to poop and how they interact i.e the butt sniffing joke you can anticipate well before it comes.

The action is even more lame than the jokes. Mirroring the equally painful family dog picture Firehouse Dog, Underdog is just a series of bad CGI talking dogs against ugly fake green screened environments. The action and the effects of Underdog are inextricably linked thus if the action is lame, the effects must be as bad or even worse.

Looking at the cast of Underdog you can't be surprised to see the name of Jim Belushi on the cast list. What is shocking and sad is the career destruction of Jason Lee. Yes, it's only his voice in the role of Underdog but nevertheless, you have to dock him a bunch of cool points for his willingness to utter such lame jokes. Worse yet, Lee will follow Underdog by starring as Dave in a live action Alvin & The Chipmunks. Ugh.

I've already heard from one former Jason Lee fan who has completely written him off now that he seems to be taking the Eddie Murphy path to the easy family movie paycheck. Even more desperate than Lee is Peter Dinklage who truly lowers himself to play the villain in Underdog. The man who became an actor to watch after his terrific performance in The Station Agent, is now flailing and gesticulating desperately as he tries to cover up this failure with wild gesturing.

I'm sure that someone thought that making a live action version of Underdog would be fun but most of the people behind this lame adaptation likely only saw dollar signs. There was no call for a live action update of Underdog. No large contingent of fans lying in wait for Disney to wake up and realize the property they held was so valuable. Like the brutal Rocky & Bullwinkle movie from a few years back, Underdog is not a cartoon that cried out for live action adaptation. Rather,Underdog is a 60's relic barely notable enough to require a DVD collection.

Even a straight to video launch would have been too much for this waste of screen space.