Movie Review
Good Boy—just one bad dog of a movie, cute for kids
by Rawly Bransom, Sports Editor

   Often movies billed as children’s movies also can be great fun for adults as well.
   I can watch movies like The Lion King, E.T., Aladdin and even Cats and Dogs and enjoy them on a completely different level than I would have as a child.
   That is not the case with Good Boy.
   Good Boy is the story of Owen Baker, played by Liam Aiken.
   Owen doesn’t have any friends because his parents, played by Kevin Nealon and Molly Shannon, are constantly moving. It could be that Owen doesn’t deserve to have any friends, but, well, the film must go on.
   Owen discovers a space ship piloted by a small dog from a planet that rotates around the star Sirius, or the Dog Star.
   The dog, which can speak English, is on a mission to find out why dogs have not conquered Planet Earth, but unfortunately crashes in the park.
   Owen agrees to help the dog and calls him Hubble, voiced by Matthew Broderick.
   Things have got to start getting better ... or so we think.
   Hubble has to get the local dogs to act as if they have taken over the world. Otherwise, the Greater Dane will force all dogs to return to Sirius.
   Other voices come from Carl Reiner as Shep, Delta Burke as a French poodle named Barbara Ann, Donald Faison as Wilson and Brittany Murphy as Nelly.
   Reiner gets a few chuckles as the voice of the very flatulent dog, Shep.
   Apparently the people involved in this movie think that children will break out in waves of laughter over a farting dog. And, there was some laughter. On the other hand, however, today’s kids are used to seeing remarkable films that are sophisticated and challenging.
   Even today’s children get bored with bathroom humor being the only comic relief.
   Other than that, though, Good Boy is a very cute movie, about cute dogs, which do cute things and act cute as they talk cutely.
   Having watched this movie, I actually felt kind of sorry for Broderick.
   Having gone from movies like Ferris Bueler’s Day Off, Biloxi Blues and Glory, it seems Broderick’s serious movie career has died.
   We have to wonder if it was his roles in flops like Godzilla and The Cable Guy that seemingly killed off his career or did his first children’s movie The Lion King that typecast him?
   Broderick is, however, slated to co-star in three films next years, as well as The Lion King 1 1/2.
   Children under the age of 10 will probably love this movie. For the rest of us, however, Good Boy has very little to offer in the way of entertainment—with maybe the exception of the occasional fart joke by Reiner.
   Moms and dads should try and wait this one out until it gets to video. That way they can sit the kids down, turn on the video and then run as fast and as far away as possible.