Everything Puppies

6.8 stars.

While I really like both lead actors, this story fails to entertain in most ways that I would prefer. The romantic aspect is all but non-existent, which I can tolerate as long as the story can rise to the challenge. Unfortunately, it does not.

A woman has created a puppy biscuit shaped like a bone (like Milkbone dog biscuits) and all the dogs and pups seem to love this brand more than the others on the market. It's also one of the healthiest versions. A large competitor does everything he can to shut down her fledgling dog food business. One very charming man at a large pet store does his best to help the woman get the product on the shelves. This is their story.

The charming and good looking man falls for the woman, he's a muscle bound store manager. She is somewhat endearing, but we don't get to see anything special happen between them. There are some misunderstandings, but the drama is lackluster. Her friend (who is a partner in her doggy business) is likable, but undeveloped as a personality. He has an ex-girlfriend (sort of) who is his currently his superior and works at the corporate office of the pet store chain for which he is a manager of one store location. There is nothing interesting about her at all. She's not even antagonist worthy, just a character with no depth.

'Puppies Everywhere' didn't bring me any excitement or anticipation, because it's too generic and limited and there isn't a large variety of puppies in the film. What I described above is literally most of the story. There aren't any real twists or turns, no side story to elevate the experience, no wow factor. None of the supporting cast stand out as being exceptional. This film is bland. I have no plans to see this again.

I feel that Stephen's talent was wasted with this movie. Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes is lacking, I'm not sure if it was chemistry between her and Stephen or she is just that bad at portraying this particular character. Trying to mix comedy with sexual harassment in the workplace didn't sit well with me and is very surprising to me that Hallmark didn't think this through. The lack of "puppies" was very disappointing as well, yes there was some dogs, but very little scenes with puppies. This is movie was so bad that I actually created an account to leave a review and I was curious what others had to say as well.

...and I'm a woman. They are so completely unprofessional. Screeching and giggling when they get an order from the pet food store right in front of the person giving them the order.

Hallmark - have you gotten new writers recently? This is the second review in a row of your new movies that I've written that is negative because of the way the women are portrayed.

I agree with the other reviewers in that I don't expect serious movies from Hallmark, but can we at least make the women not seem like complete idiots?

And my husband's contribution: "This is not on my list of the top 1,000 Hallmark movies."

This movie seems to prioritize the following themes in this order: 1) Cutthroat business wars; 2) Puppies and dogs; 3) Work/life balance; 4) Scarlett and Alex's relationship. The ranking is subjective as I saw it. Regardless of that, my point is that this rom/com spent a LOT of screen time on the business wars including unethical conduct behind the scenes. I don't tune in to Hallmark to watch a cliche portrayal of cutthroat business. I suspect most people who tune in to this channel do so more for relationship development.

The theme of work/life balance has been popular on Hallmark for a while now. There is nothing wrong with it, but it gets a lot of play.

The puppies are definitely cute and are a definite plus for this movie.

Scarlett's dog treats were almost magical in the way dogs reacted so instantly and so strongly. And they are healthy too!

Acting. Something was off at times. Rather than the acting, it may have been something else. Transitions were rough at times. Dialogue seemed trite at times. And the brand Pup Chuck. I did a web search on those two words and off to the right, but at the top of the page was a definition section for the word "up-chuck". The similarity is probably intentional since the guy pushing the Pup Chuck brand was the movie's cardboard villain. He didn't have a handlebar mustache though. Maybe the thing that seemed off to me was the humor which seemed to be based on parody but didn't seem to be invested in it.

Stephen Huszar is 40 this year. The only thing I could find about Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes was somewhere between 22 and 28. That's a notable age difference for a romance story. Scarlett's character seemed youngish in the way she approached things.

For story and acting, I would probably not watch this again. The puppies and dogs made it watchable for one time through.

To heck with the naysayers. I found the movie to be entertaining and uplifting. Take away my man-card if you want, but I've watched hundreds of hours of Hallmark movies with my wife over the years, and I've got to say, I thought this one not a bad movie.

Sure, the women could have been more professional when they received the first order, but what's the big deal? It's a classic story of David vs. Goliath woven with a three act love story ending with a happily ever after.

Did I expect the production quality to be up there with Gone with the Wind? Or course not. But I thought the actors did a good job overall.