Hola all. Massawyrm here.
When you walk into a movie advertised as “From the makers of WILD HOGS,” you pretty much know where you have to set the bar. This isn’t a film made for us; it is a film made for the PAUL BLART MALL COP crowd. In the algebra of the film world it is absolutely the very lowest common denominator. I fully support the making of films that appeal to different audiences, but this? This is a new low. You see, I’ve seen WILD HOGS, and I can say without a doubt that while I did not like it, it at least functioned as a movie. It had a narrative, characters, attempts at building running gags – a beginning, a middle and an end. But not so OLD DOGS. OLD DOGS is a cartoon, a meandering series of over the top scenes loosely linked together by a weak setup.
This isn’t a movie, it’s a series of skits in which John Travolta and Robin Williams race each other to see who can run out of dignity first. SPOILER WARNING: it’s a photo finish. Neither of these two are strangers to the cinematic mad grab for cash, every few years finding their way onto something not unlike a Japanese game show to see how they can be most humiliated for the biggest check; but I thought even they had their limits. I mean, I should have expected it out of Williams. After a stand-up comedy tour a hairs-breath away from being as funny as his LIVE ON BROADWAY show and a really great dark comedy like WORLD’S GREATEST DAD, he was due to fuck it up somehow.
But did he have to drag along so many other talented folks with him? At this point we expect it out of Travolta. And okay, Dax Shepard never hit like he should have so I can look the other way, especially since he gets to slum it in scenes with Luis Guzman. But Matt Dillon? Justin Long? Hell, even Bernie Mac shows up in a performance I’m not quite sure was shot before his death in August of last year. And Seth fucking Green? Oh fuck, Seth. Why didn’t you tell us you were hurting so bad? We could have taken up a collection. Anything but seeing you do what you do here. You realize to you took a shot in the nuts from a stray golf ball, right? In a Robin Williams movie? Seth, you’re officially that guy.
For simplicity’s sake I will momentarily be using words like gag and characters. This is to no way infer that there actually is anything resembling either of these concepts in this film, but are present only in case any of OLD DOGS core audience blindly stumbles into this review, fumbling with the words while trying to understand how watching Seth Green get hit squaw in the babymaker isn’t the funniest god damned thing we’ve seen all year. Robin Williams plays Old Dog #1, a sports-something-or-other representative and bachelor with no visible personality. John Travolta plays Old Dog #2, a sports-something-or-other representative and SWINGING bachelor with no visible personality. Together these best friends own a sports-something-or-other where they employ Seth Green, who appears to be grinning ear to ear as if he keeps looking at all the zeroes on his check before each take. The only character with less common sense in this film than Old Dog #1 and Old Dog #2 is Green. Process that universe for a moment.
When Old Dog #1 discovers that he accidentally knocked up Kelly Preston seven years ago and has fraternal twin children, he is forced to watch them for two weeks when this one night stand cum mother of his children has to go to jail for two weeks. All this while our intrepid Old Dogs have to negotiate the biggest deal of their lives! Oh no! It couldn’t be worse timing. The rest of the film is a series of relatively unconnected sequences of attempts at fatherhood, misunderstandings, and gags involving the Old Dogs being mistaken for grandparents or the elderly. To punctuate every gag – as well as the title – the film is filled with dogs all of whom seem keenly aware (even more so than the cast) as to how big a jackass these characters are being at any given moment. These dogs are used as reaction shots every chance the film gets, because the only thing funnier than two shameless actors mugging for the camera while accidentally taking each other’s pharmaceuticals is when a dog can cock its head at their antics. Right?
You better hope so. Because that’s the strongest gag this film has to offer. It is insufferable, one of the very worst, most unrelentingly painful pieces of shit I’ve seen all year. A rapid fire series of sequences that plumbs the very depths of the comedy barrel and brings nothing back up to the surface but shame for anyone involved with it. It never develops a character. It never tries to tell a story. It simply wanders from joke to joke on auto-pilot because really, I’ve barely told you anything about this film and you can write the story yourself without getting a detail wrong.
I’m not going to lie, the audience I saw this with found it on occasion pretty funny. Sure, everyone sitting in the press row looked around confused every time this happened, but what are you gonna do? It’s a shitty mindless short attention span comedy for people who love shitty mindless short attention span comedies. Not to be viewed by the even remotely discerning, OLD DOGS is a film so bad that were I offered the choice between watching this or PAUL BLART MALL COP, I’d watch PBMC twice before I’d even think about enduring this again. Given a third option I’d opt for the wisdom of Odin twice and go all Oedipus Rex on this movie.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Got something for the Wyrm? Mail it here.
