Old Dogs

Old Dogs ~ One of the cool things about the Disney Cruise is that not only do they have a movie theatre on board, they also have first run movies. That’s how I came to be subjected to Old Dogs. There are two ways I can look at it. Hey, I didn’t have to pay to see it. Or I had to pay the price of the Cruise to see it. Either way, this was torture.

Friends for life (or possibly un-closeted life mates had the script been more clever or progressive) and business partners John Travolta and Robin Williams struggle to take care of the latter’s kids that he just found out about. That’s the thrust of this fiasco that recycles not only old sitcom set-ups but also seemingly all of the bad jokes from all the unmade Grumpy Old Men sequels. Of course, even now, Walter Matthau would’ve pulled it off better, nine years in his grave.

There are at least fragments of Robin Williams’ talent here, maybe for a fleeting moment or two. John Travolta on the other hand is a disaster. It seems that maybe his own recent personal tragedies have affected his acting. And speaking of family, he pretty much employed most of them for this flick. He’s not looking well either, either too much botox or maybe botched plastic surgeries.

Matt Dillon embarrasses himself again, but no more than he did in There’s Something About Mary, a scatological comedy that actually worked as opposed to this one. The late Bernie Mac makes his final film appearance here as some sort of Funkadelic Barney, and if that was all he was, it would have been great – sadly that only lasts for half a minute. He looks bad and this cameo is hardly worth it.

The height difference between Seth Green and the two leads is painful even with a whole raft of short jokes. You know it’s a bad movie when Seth Green out-acts two Oscar nominees. And when Ann Margaret shows up, that clinches it for me – this obviously is a Grumpy Old Men sequel. There are a lot of funny ideas here, it’s just that very few of them actually make it into the movie intact.

And yes, they do kill the dog. The oldest trick in the book, but not even that cliché can save this piece of crap. This movie was truly the lowlight of the Cruise.