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Snow Dogs
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Going by the trailer, audiences might expect Snow Dogs to be full of dogs indulging in
heavily animated facial expressions while giving voice to witticisms in the vein of the Look Who's Talking films.
In
fact, such exaggerated moments in the film are rare,
and the talking-dogs scene is a brief (if delightful) dream sequence. But the
rest of it is still a lot of fun.
This
is the story of Ted (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), successful but unhappy in the
dentistry job which his father groomed him for. Discovering at last that his
real parents are elsewhere, he sets off for the snow of
Alaska. His mother is dead, and his father
is alive, but extremely aloof and, even worse, white. Much of the film is
touchingly devoted to the slow, sentimental negotiation between Ted and his
reluctant father-figure, Jack (James Coburn).
Apart
from that, it is a fish-out-of-water comedy. Ted must learn how to dress for
the snow, how to mix with the locals, and how to ride with the pack of dogs
bequeathed to him. He even receives lessons in love and musical taste (the
anti-Michael
Gooding is one of those actors whose energetic, rather
self-absorbed schtick has made him hard to cast in the years since Jerry Maguire (1996). Director Brian
Levant (the Flinstones movie series)
has figured out clever ways to use Gooding’s mannerisms here, particularly in
the scenes where he tries to ingratiate himself with the dogs.
Of these creatures only one, the angry leader named Demon, really emerges with a personality – so much so, that
he manages to steal the ending from all the human characters.
MORE Levant: Are We There Yet? © Adrian Martin June 2002 |
