Air Buddies

Buddy and his girlfriend Molly are back, but this time they can talk and the couple has five puppies. When the dog and his beloved are kidnapped, leaving their owner Noah very sad, the rescue mission will be precisely in charge of this true fantastic quintet: the chubby Budderball, the dirty Mudbud, the meditative Bud-Dha, the amiable RoseBud and the rapper B-Dawg!

As usually happens in my life, I started at the end to finish the franchise with the first film, which explains how the donations of the puppies were made to each of the characters that in the last film act together, the humans, cute, the puppies franchise went to more interesting than Bud dad... Just a little dull and always More of the same...

My 7-year-old daughter loved it, as Disney execs crassly calculated that she would. That's the problem with "Air Buddies." It's a strictly by-the-numbers children's film filled with carefully calculated cuteness, a couple politically correct morals, and enough potty humor to avoid the dreaded G rating. As a parent, or even as a 10-year-old, you've seen it all before, and done better before. Think "101 Dalmatians Meets Home Alone" and you get the general idea. I'm of the opinion that a good children's story is a good story, period. "Air Buddies," which is about as original as recycled paper, fails to meet that standard. It isn't the worst video your child could watch, but there are megatons of better ones.

We rented this movie (along with Material Girls) for a group of four 9 & 10 year old girls to watch on New Year's eve. They absolutely LOVED it. Surprising to me, 2 of them commented that they liked it much more than the Material Girl (the Hillary Duff movie - and these girls are the age where most are big Hillary Duff fans), It is corny and there were a few parts I didn't care for. I think the part suggesting that the puppy was drunk from swimming in some wine would have been better left out. (Tell me - wine isn't fermented yet at the point he was swimming in it, is it? I'm thinking it was WAY too early in the wine making process.) I also don't care for gas jokes - but the girls laughed.

I have not seen any other air bud movies (guess there have been several?), so I cannot compare - but it was cute and a reasonable safe bet for the pre-teen set.

Five ways to make a film successful, no matter how the film really is:

1) Have tons of nudity. The very next moment, the movie is a blockbuster.eg. Showgirls (I heard many adore the movie)

2) Let it be based on a superhero. Superhero movies have mystical powers to captivate the attention of the audience. Eg. Spiderman, Fantastic 4, Transformers

3) Action does it all. Include guns, detonators and all kinds of weapons and have a boom film. It attracts teen boys and guys.

4) Star power: Make Denzel act in a Z-grade film and the next day, the Z transforms into an A.

And 5

Make it a cute movie, like this one. Easier way is to include adorable dogs. This formula woks well all the time as there are a number of avid dog lovers like me who would swarm over to watch this film.

I was a bit ambivalent whether this film would be good enough, as some movies based on dogs have been a bit too sweet. This one too leads the league of sweet movies.

Frankly speaking, the story could've been a lot better. The tiger thing would normally be present is a B grade flick. The voice acting could've improved. Some of the dogs were funny but the voicing of the Sheriff dog was bad.

Even the Sheriff dog's lip movements looked unreal. The puppies were really cute, especially Buddha, who was funny. But the names of some could've been somewhat more different. For example, 'Rosebud', 'Mudbud' and 'Budderball' had so much 'bud' present. Instead of mud bud, they could've kept mud-'something else.

It was edited for obtaining 'G' rating but it could've had a variety of jokes that could be rated G but were a bit more mature.

Overall, it is a cute film that would be liked if you keep in mind that it is meant to be cute only. 5 out of 10.

The movie is cute, and no doubt one the kids will like. As an adult, I found it harmless and watchable. My three children 6-11 enjoyed it a lot. I loved Michael Clark Duncan as a voice talent. I could have listened to him and the character he played all night. Other actors did not seem as polished, allow Wallace Shawn and Debra Jo Rupp were good as expected. There is not as much action with the dogs playing sports, however. The movie (no spoilers) is about Air Buds 5 puppies and how they are kidnapped. The bumbling kidnappers foil everything, but Air Bud and his "Dog Wife" (a subdued Molly Shannon) head out to rescue their pups along with two middle school age boys. The movie seemed to borrow quite heavily from the live action Disney's 101 Dalmatians. All in all, it's still a nice way to have a family night.