MAN'S BEST FRIEND
A film review by Tak
Placed in the public domain 1993 by Mark Takacs
NewLine Cinema / approx 90 mins / color Rated: R Tak rating: see once as a matinee (or wait a few weeks and rent it)
TV-Guide(tm)-Review
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A genetically designed guard dog opens a big can of whup-ass on
everyone/everything in sight.
Tak Summary (I couldn't resist SOME low-grade guessable spoilers)
Sounds great, right? Well, apparently the good doctor hasn't gotten all the kinks worked out yet, for the dog goes dangerously psychotic and tends to munch on the lab help unless he gets his periodic tranquilizer shots.
Which wouldn't be of much concern to us except that Max is freed from the vivisection-practicing lab by an investigative reporter who befriends him. Max, much to her surprise and delight, ends up staying with her and her animal-disliking boyfriend.
Max's drugs hold out for the night, so he remains calm. But the next morning he's feeling rather frisky: he offs a cat (defying gravity to do so), a parrot, a mailman, a hydrant (I won't spoil it for ya), makes two attempts at the reporter's boyfriend, and stops briefly for some frolicking with a nervous neighborhood collie.
Meanwhile the reporter (who still thinks Max is a big cuddle beast) decides to give Max away so he won't be killed, found, or returned to the EMAX lab. She takes him to a junkyard owner who apparently has a dog-heaven ranch outside town. She leaves, and before she's out of sight, he beans Max over the back o'the head with a shovel (he coulda used some spider sense ...), and chains him up for a career as a junkyard dog. Max will have none of it--he breaks his bonds, gets a beauty mark, dispatches the owner (guys, you might not wanna watch this scene ... ouch) and bounds home.
Meanwhile the doctor has finally convinces the police to stop investigating him for murder, and has them send the troops after his million-dollar dog. The bumbling police arrive just in time to save our heroine, but not so-in-time for her boyfriend, whose face will never be the same again (Max must drink too much cranberry juice). We're then treated to a five-car chase scene, low-budget car crashes (fender-benders really), some goofy dog catchers, and the required computer graphics.
We pause briefly for breath, then jump right back into the thick of things with many dead policemen, bullets, more car crashes and a climactic showdown back at the Lab where it all began. In true B-movie style, they manage to include all sorts of goodies in the climax. They start with a chase, elbow-fu, projectiles, a car crash. And it doesn't stop until they've combined an impressive array of gimmicks, including a series of chases, rubble, lurking psychotic dogs, the stuffed-dog variant of the spring-load-cat scare trick, a shotgun, electrocution, needles, big knives, tense hiding in dark spooky labs, bleeding (lots of bleeding), a tender moment, and poetic justice by a cute dog that I thought shoulda shared the parrot's fate.
The movie ends on a sad note, but then turns things around with ... anyone? anyone? ... hope for ... anyone? anyone? ... a sequel!
Technical Comments
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Nothing really obnoxious to got in the way of your enjoyment of
this gem.
Okay, okay. There *was* one bad edit that looked like they dropped about five frames from a chase scene. And a tree-climbing scene reminded me of those old live-actor spider-man movies where you can just *tell* the camera is sideways. But that's what makes a truly good B-movie.
Tak Thoughts ------------ I do so love bad movies. This one was a fine example. It was fun to watch, the plot was dealt with early on so we could got down to the action, and we got to laugh, cheer and cringe.
The blood-splashing was kept to a minimum, mostly at the beginning. And they never do show much maiming actually going on ... just enough to let your imagination do all the work, which I prefer anyway. The St.Bernard wasn't actually *shown* attacking complete people--lots of close-ups of limbs and suggestive action cuts. But there was the scene where some kids sic Max on a cat (yea! there's too many of these foul creatures anyway), where Max ingests the whole cat in bloodless snake-like fashion.
They got pretty thick with the animal rights moralizing at times, (again near the beginning--was their boss watching then?) but it was bearable. There were lots of familiar cookie-cutter movie characters, but that's okay too.
We hear some classic lines from the doctor: "In the right hands Max can save lives, but in the wrong hands he can be a deadly weapon." I've heard *that* one a lot. The parrot even gets some good wise-cracks in before he turns into a feathered kibble. (I wonder if they actually taught it its lines?) A security guard with all of three lines gets a one-liner where he calls the mad doctor "jerk"--I guess you had to be there. It did get a chuckle from the audience.
The plot's not terribly original, and looks rather tattered under good lighting. What's up with the laser-sighted dart gun? Or the throw-away comment about Max turning on the doctor? Why'd the police go from disbelief and laughter to fully supporting the doctor with a five car chase, a stake-out and blazing guns? Just imagine: "you want us to shoot the dog??" But that's just picky afterthoughts. We don't need no steenkin plot!
And the types of -fu were amazing. We got to see (in alphabetical order): barrel-fu, bat-fu, brake-line-fu, bullet-fu, cage-fu, claw-fu, dartgun-fu, elbow-fu, fang-fu, knife-fu, mace-fu, rat-poison-fu, shotgun-fu, shovel-fu, uric acid-fu, welding torch-fu, and I'm sure I'm forgetting others.
A light-hearted, fun, low-gore, love-conquers-all, whup-ass movie. Entertainment for the whole family. This would make a good installment in your whup-ass matinee diet. You'll need a break from all the smarmy feel-good holiday movies coming up anyway.
Rating system:
avoid at all costs
watch it on cable
wait for videotape
X see once as a matinee
see several times (w/friends) as matinee
see once at full price
see it several times - full and/or matinee
see many times at full price
.
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