Underdog (2007)

"...made for the Saturday morning TV crowd, and parents who lead their tykes to this adventure aren't likely to leave disappointed.  Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
"There's no need to fear. "Underdog" brings cheer.  Linda Cook, Quad City Times

Editor's Note To save the day, here comes Underdog, a 1970s Saturday morning cartoon transformed to glorious, semi-CGI animated life; it's a talking animal live-action film--à la BABE--with wisecracks aplenty. Voiced by Jason Lee, Underdog is the joke of the K-9 police force after his weakness for ham disrupts a public ceremony. Dejectedly, he lets himself get abducted for an animal experiment by a mad scientist, Dr. Simon Barsinister (Peter Dinklage). He escapes, doused in experimental chemicals, to become a dog with 80 times his normal strength. Jim Belushi embodies the sad-sack security guard at the laboratory who finds Underdog and takes him home as a playmate for his alienated tweener son (Alex Neuberger). The fact that chaos follows will come as no surprise, but what may is the genial tone the film maintains throughout. UNDERDOG blends its CGI animation and live action with finesse, and with performances that are breezy and in-on-the-same-joke. Lots of the humor in Underdog plays off the fact that he needs to curb his baser habits, since he's the type to dig bones deep into the earth, fly through walls, and shatter glass with his bark. Dinklage plays the evil scientist with a welcome restraint and Malkovich-ian archness; his evil assistant (Patrick Warburton) makes good use of a thesaurus for his evil declarations. Taylor Momsen plays the neighborhood tweener damsel in distress, who happens to have a cute girl dog, voiced by Amy Adams.

	James Belushi
	Patrick Warburton
	Peter Dinklage
	Samantha Bee
	Adam Rifkin, et. al. - Writer
	Amy Adams - Voice Of
	Brad Garrett - Voice Of
	David Eggby - Cinematographer
	Frederik Du Chau - Director
	Garreth Stover - Production Designer
	James F. Truesdale - Art Director
	Jason Lee - Voice Of
	Jay Leno - Featuring
	Randy Edelman - Original Music By
	Roger Birnbaum - Producer
	Todd Arnow - Executive Producer
	Tom Finan - Editor
	W. Watts Biggers - Based On Television Series By

Ultimate DVD
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he film maintains a punchy pace that will keep the young 'uns on side..." 04/01/2008 p.90

Variety 6 of 10
Not unlike its accident-prone superhero, "Underdog" is clumsy, fast-moving and thoroughly inoffensive. Tale of a genetically modified mutt who becomes a canine crime-fighter falls somewhere between stale retread and half-hearted parody of superhero-movie formulas, bearing more of a resemblance to live-action talking-dog fare like "Wishbone" or "Look Who's Talking Now" than the amusing '60s toon series on which it's based...Parents who grew up watching "Underdog" may feel a twinge of nostalgia during the film's opening sequence, which affectionately revisits the series' modest, hand-drawn images...Directed by Frederik Du Chau...from a workmanlike script by Adam Rifkin and writing partners Joe Piscatella and Craig A. Williams, pic appears to have left most of the TV show's charming idiosyncrasies intact, such as Underdog's groan-worthy rhyming schemes...or his tendency to fly into buildings -- which, in this live-action incarnation, naturally results in a lot of broken glass. At no point does any of this come close to capturing the toon's droll, shambling spirit, which begs the question of why Disney chose to adapt this particular property for the bigscreen, beyond the studio's long-held tradition of doggy anthropomorphism. - Justin Chang