The second film in the Bruce Cameron-created dog-iverse trades in stereotypes and mixed messaging, but at least there’s less on-screen canine peril.
It’s hard to know who is more mistreated in “A Dog’s Way Home,” the city of Denver, Colorado, or the audience who has to sit through it. On the one hand, Denver’s city-wide pit bull ban probably deserves some scrutiny. On the other hand, the knowledge that this inane and humorless movie is only the second in a pending trilogy cuts more deeply than any dog bite. Denver isn’t the only city that should consider a city-wide ban.
The follow-up to last year’s “A Dog’s Purpose,” this movie follows a different anthropomorphized dog, and this time, she stays in one body. That’s right — the first movie followed a single dog soul throughout many rebirths, a premise that allowed for a variety of pup cuteness, but also necessitated more than a few dog deaths throughout its painful 100 minutes. (Aside from putting fictional dogs in harm’s way, PETA called for nationwide boycotts of the movie after video surfaced of one of its dog actors nearly drowning.)
“A Dog’s Way Home” follows a more traditional talking dog narrative, borrowing from such canon canine films as “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey” and “Look Who’s Talking Now.” (“Look Who’s Talking Now,” the final installment in the Kirstie Alley/John Travolta trilogy, also isn’t very good, but at least managed to entertain its intended audience: children.)
