unfortunately - cause everyone needs to see this movie and I have to spoil the film cause I just enjoyed it too god-damn much.
But admittedly, you'll only enjoy it if you're an animal lover.
Actually, that should be a warning to viewers -
MUST BE AN ANIMAL LOVER TO ENJOY THIS FILM.
Let's see.
What do you get when you put a
Golden Retriever,
German Shepherd,
Pembroke Welsh Corgi,
and a St. Bernard- Australian Shepherd mix
together?
And, do this in a film?
You get a breath-taking, tear-jerking blend of comedy mixed in with some drama for an hour and 35 minutes.
I should own up to something here, before I dive into the film.
When it was in cinema, I totally over-looked it, as
a) I had no idea that the film was made from a brilliant book of the same name (easily corrected via my wish list on Amazon, I've added all the books from the series by W. Bruce Cameron)
b) I spotted the film that was in cinema but I did not see any trailers/ previews/ synopsis for the film nor take it on, until I was told by someone in March, that she thinks I would enjoy the movie.
Truthfully? I regretted not seeing this movie in cinema. Cause some movies are just meant to be seen in cinema.
But, I would've come across it sooner rather than later cause a combination of loving dogs and loving movies, I doubt I would've missed it.
As long as it's a good movie of course.
I saw this movie on Saturday 29th April, 2017 and during the movie I said to myself, no doubt about it, no question, this has to be a blog post. And here it is :)
The whole movie was centered on a dog being re-incarnated over the space of about five decades, interspersed with a fairly obvious love, hate, heartbreak, human story.
The human element, needed to be there of course, cause that is the point of the whole movie, what is a dog's purpose in life.
There were some good moments, some outrageously funny moments, some sad moments, unfortunately it was a recipe all too familiar.
I'll admit here, that I genuinely got all teary-eyed and choked up with each of the death scenes, if anyone had asked me what's wrong at that stage, I wouldn't have know what to say. Maybe dust went into my eye?
The first incarnation was with a lovely golden retriever named Bailey, the set-up of the story-line was intriguing with his birth to his death. This is the only incarnation that goes fairly deep into the background of who Bailey is, as a dog and as well the human owner who pops back up in Bailey's fourth incarnation. The problem was, is that this took up 50 minutes of screen time which left little time left for his journey through other incarnations.
The incarnation with the German shepherd (named Ellie - curiously a female this time) was next, as a police dog, who gets shot in the line of duty after only ten minutes of screen time, a huge amount of unexplored potential with this dog in my opinion.
Next in line, the Corgi incarnation (named Tino, sounds like a typical Corgi name for some reason), ohhhhhh my god, I love Corgis sooooo much eek. Dang, now I'm starting to sound like a love-struck school girl. I've never met one to hug-up as yet. Bucket list checked! This is probably the only reason that I'm jealous of the Queen of England and her Pembroke Welsh Corgis, sigh wish I was her just so I could play with Corgis the whole day - Queen Elizabeths Corgis
Moving along, after another regretfully short incarnation - 12 minutes, we meet the last incarnation of Bailey, and his 5 decade journey back to his original master. A St. Bernard- Australian Shepherd mix (Named Buddy, a rather no-nonsense name for a dog), a curious mix but a delightfully shaggy drown your face in its fur kind of dog. The final incarnation of Bailey was the redemption moment of the film for the human owner from his first incarnation, Ethan Montgomery, Baily actually helped him find back his love from his high school days, awww.... heart strings being tugged kinda moment.
Dang all this dust in my eye... sniff.
My ratings
Dog element of story - 9/10
Human element of story - 4/10
Overall Rating - 6.5/10
Critical reactions as per the Rotten Tomatoes site - 34% - A Dog's Purpose offers an awkward blend of sugary sentiment and canine suffering that tugs at animal-loving audiences' heartstrings with shameless abandon.
This is probably the perfect reaction to the film admittedly, it was good but some parts not so much. I wholeheartedly agree with this view.
However, audiences worldwide loved it to the extent that the Box office was $185M against a budget of $22M.
Possibly affecting the box office take was the animal abuse allegations against the making of the film, not to go into much detail, the reports coming out from the people involved in making the film indicate that these accusations were completely unfounded. As a result it's quite likely that the campaigns against the film unfortunately worked to some degree for what was a great story to tell (no matter how fictional). It's likely however, that we'll never know what actually happened on set that day the so-called footage was shot.
If we have to believe something though, hopefully this article has the whole truth and nothing but the truth - Third Party Investigation finds no animal injuries or cruelty.
As long as you're prepared to overlook the poor character building for the individual lives of each dog as well as some poor acting performances from the human leads, you'll have a great time in the movie.
Overall, it's a movie that will not only make you think about why do you have a dog in your life, why does he love you so much, and if you don't have one, makes you wonder, why don't you have a dog in your life?
I suspect though, that there were some scenes cut that would've fleshed out the story better and be more tonally coherent, but that's the movie that the world has seen and we're left to wonder how much better the movie would've been.
It's a feel good movie for animal lovers (especially dog-lovers), you're going to enjoy yourself, some advice, try not to look for the deeper meaning into anything in the movie, or why did they do that or say this and you'll be good to go.
Even though I have not read the book as yet, I highly recommend it as a gift for dog lovers, as it's generally understood that books are far better than the movies made of them.
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