# My Dog Skip (2000)

### reviewed by
James Brundage

filmcritic.com presents a review from staff member James Brundage. You can find the review with full credits at http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/60e74e041ca9cd6b8625626f0062219f/d36db9c5bb0cb6db88256920000ccab7?OpenDocument

    My Dog Skip (1999, PG)

The wise man once said "You can't run through the gauntlet of PACs without getting somebody on their high horse." Political Action Committees -- groups that watch Hollywood second only to watching Washington -- are so numerous in this jolly land of political correctness in which we all reside, that nobody ever makes anything without annoying some PAC. It is like the Strait of Messia of politics... sail your ship there, and without the guidance of a goddess, your Argonauts shall fall into Poseidon's watery deep.

Nobody survives the gauntlet... no one, that is, except for the filmmakers of My Dog Skip.

My Dog Skip is your standard kiddy fare -- trite message, half-decent acting, something dealing with an animal thrown in, and messages that hit you like the ten ton anvil falling on a Loony Toons character -- with one massive distinction... My Dog Skip prompts no political reaction at all. Try as you might, no PAC can find fault with the film.

Although standard family values and conservative viewpoints are lauded throughout My Dog Skip's utterly wholesome, WWII setting, no knee-jerk liberal reactions are possible. The SPCA will be utterly pleased that all animal violence is both off screen and admitted as a terrible thing. The NAACP will be pleased that a civil rights subplot was thrown in. Women's Rights groups will be pleased that, although the father is described as "overbearing" the mother still ends up being the one who does the plumbing while the father cooks the meals. And, in the brief moment that hunters are featured, they get to bring down their game and be characterized as villains at the same time.

            I don't even think that the main character's family ever eats red meat.

That being said, My Dog Skip still manages to pull a few family-related heartstrings. The film is a collection of a few positive life-lesson subplots (kid gets dog, kid gets friends, kid gets girlfriends), each of which are so kitschy that (combined with Harry Connick Jr.'s soft narration) they manage to pull the emotional purse strings enough to get little kids misty-eyed, and the adults get misty-eyed out of sympathy.

Yet My Dog Skip, in its attempt to run the PAC gauntlet and please its target audience at the same time, ends up being a totally forgettable cinematic effort. The characters' names slip into the data stream of memory so quickly that they are revealed as nothing more than archetypes as you recollect the film (he was the kid, he was the dad, it was the dog). The events of the movie take a little longer to leave you, but they won't clutter it up for too long.

    2 stars

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