Good Boy | AccessAtlanta

Good Boy!

His dog is his best friend ... so he thought.

FILM FACTS

Starring: Liam Aiken and the voices of Matthew Broderick, Brittany Murphy, Carl Reiner and Vanessa Redgrave
Director: John Hoffman
Rating: PG for mild crude humor
Genre: Comedy, Family

Official movie site

See showtimes (PG) 87 minutes

Grade: B

Verdict: Good Movie!

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Good Boy!” is so doggone cute, it's a sure bet to become a fixture in family video collections. But see the picture in the theater first. Brought to us by the good folks at Jim Henson Productions, it's a small, charming alternative to holiday-season mega-kiddie-movies like “Dr. Seuss' the Cat in the Hat.”

As “Good Boy!” would have it, dogs are only pretending to be man's best friends. Thousands of years ago, they were dispatched from the planet Sirius (aka the Dog Star) with a mandate to ingratiate themselves with the locals, thus paving the way for an alien takeover of Earth.

Canid 3942 (played by Flynn, a border terrier, and voiced by Matthew Broderick) has been sent to sniff out how things are going. Crash-landing near a pleasant suburban neighborhood, Canid 3942 is immediately picked up by animal control and taken to a shelter. There, he's adopted by 12-year-old Owen (a very engaging Liam Aiken, last seen in “Road to Perdition”) and renamed Hubble (as in telescope?).

Owen knows there's something weird about his new pet; when he asks him to play dead, the dog gives a performance worthy of Olivier in “Hamlet.” But he doesn't know what . . . yet.

The movie has elements of “Lilo & Stitch” and “Cats & Dogs,” but it's sweeter and wittier. Some of Hubble's new-to-Earth reactions are hilarious. “I wish people would quit wiping their hands on me,” he grouses, after being petted by Owen's parents, Molly Shannon and Kevin Nealon. (Subject for further research: Will cute kiddie movies be the eventual fate of all second-rung former SNL-ers?)

From its “The World According to Garp” opening, with bouncing dogs replacing “Garp's” babies, to its comic set pieces (all the dogs flat on their backs as Hubble teaches them to meditate), the movie is aimed squarely at dog nuts and the people who indulge their mania. There are also good messages about family and responsible adoption. But mostly “Good Boy!” is about watching the dogs do doggie things . . . with a twist.

The voice talent is expert — and expertly matched to each featured breed. There's a bounding boxer (eager Donald Faison), a manicured standard poodle (Southern belle-ish Delta Burke), a jumpy Italian greyhound (deliciously pipsqueaky Brittany Murphy) and a gaseous Bernese mountain dog (growly Carl Reiner).

Best of all is Broderick, who so skillfully coordinates his readings with his canine counterpart's body language and facial expressions, you really do believe Hubble has human intelligence. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Flynn is like a 21st-century Benji — more groomed for a styling generation, but with the same scruffy charm and big brown eyes.

Maybe Broderick was simply smart enough to hitch his wagon to a new dog star.