Cani & gatti - La vendetta di Kitty

Mary wanted to see it-- her rule is, if it's got a cat in it, she wants to see it. Quick summary: the trailer shows all the good scenes. The first movie had been mildly cute, although forgettable. The highlight of sequel should have been "more really cute dogs and cats." But they decided to put an average (full grown) German Shepherd in the lead (instead of the cute puppy from the first movie), and focused too much on the pigeon (who, admittedly, did get most of the good lines). The supporting cat was good, but had too little screen time. Most of the plot was quotes from other movies, with cats and dogs playing the parts (in particular, the opening title scene was a very well done version of the old James Bond movie title sequences). Except for where it was a direct parody of other movies, the plot was mostly perfunctory, and the denouement was a long and mostly incomprehensible action scene. The 3- D was both irrelevant, and also badly done. See it in 2D. If you see it, do stick through the credits for the final scene.

I'm 42 and this is the second kid oriented film I've seen in less then two weeks, the first was Beezus And Ramona. I guess maybe in a way I'm a kid at heart. I never saw the first Dogs And Cats so I can't compare. I can say that this is a fun, breezy way to spend 82 minutes. I like how this spoofs James Bond movies right down to the opening credits and the name Kitty Galore. Also, Roger Moore does one of the voices and his character is named Tab Lazenby (for you Bond trivia lovers, George Lazenby played 007 in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service). Don't call me weird but I think that there is a good message for children in this film, let me explain. The dogs and cats join forces to stop this rogue cat Kitty Galore. This teaches kids that you should put aside petty things to band together as a team. Oh, they also do a good job of spoofing Silence Of The Lambs. My only real complaint isn't with the animals its with one of the humans in the film, that goofy magician Kitty was working for. He was so annoying.

This belated sequel to the 2001 box-office hit Cats & Dogs is better than I expected. That's not to say it's great, it's not, but there have been far inferior kiddie films I've sat through this year with my four year old (not naming any names... Alvin and Shrek). There's free-flowing action that will entertain the younglings and the animals themselves are cute and/or funny enough to please all audience members, though the plot has more than its fair share of eye-rolling moments and the CGI is poorer than it should be considering the movie's $85m budget.

The gags are hit or miss, however the few that stick are quite amusing. A riff on Silence of the Lambs is hilarious and provides the sole laugh-out-loud scene whilst the Head of M.E.O.W (the feline secret service agency) Tab Lazenby – cheekily voiced by Roger Moore – offers plenty of 007 parodied humour. Elsewhere the talented voice cast do their best to inject energy into the frequently lack-lustre and cheesy script. Marsden is likable as lead mutt Diggs, Nolte is gruff as ever as Alec Baldwin's replacement for the hardened Butch, Applegate brings the sass as Catherine and Midler is clearly having a blast as the malevolent Kitty. Chris O'Donnell fares a lot worse as live-action character Shane, Diggs' loving ex-cop partner, his unabashed mugging an absolute low in his career.

Decent enough viewing with the nippers on a wet weekend.

2.5 out of 5 (1 - Rubbish, 2 - Ordinary, 3 - Good, 4 - Excellent, 5 - Classic)

Well, the official website for "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" has a paw for a mouse pointer, the movie uses most every lazy pun possible about pets, and a reviewer has already claimed the movie marks the end of civilization as we know it. With such prospects, a film about talking cats and dogs coming together to fight off Kitty Galore (voiced by Bette Midler) doesn't eye well for adults. And it doesn't. Any mathematicians in the theater can better spend their time tracking the noticeable upward curve of boredom and silliness the longer the movie runs (the pet gags during the end credits don't count).

Aren't kids movies like this supposed to be funny despite their absurdity? It took 9 years to bring this sequel of "Cats & Dogs" to the theaters, which gave it plenty of time to spread a wide umbrella for big name voices. Nick Nolte's deep scratchy voice took to the end credits to figure out, but it stands out in his role as a scrappy mentor dog, Butch, the muscle of a secret agency run by semi-intelligent talking dogs.

We learn that dogs have an underground spy organization where no human has ever entered, appropriately outfitted with hi-tech gadgets in the Bond tradition and specially tailored for dog clichés. Cats have a similar underground facility for their secret organization, named MEOWS. The first pet puns are quirky and tone setting, but after the third or fourth - and when combined with lame cultural references (including Hannibal Lecter and who knows what else) - it becomes torture.

The main character is a German shepherd police dog named Diggs (James Marsden), who joins a band of unlikely heroes to try to protect humans against Kitty Galore. Diggs follows the 'Dirty Harry' template of the ends justifies his means, that is, he causes havoc while taking down a madman and tends to set off fiery explosions in the process. So, of course, he's recruited by Butch (Nick Nolte) to join the secret dog organization. Diggs and Butch reluctantly join teams with a top kitty agent, Catherine (Christina Applegate), from MEOWs. Along for the ride is a pea brained pigeon, Seamus (Katt Williams), to provide comic relief.

The plot is adequately thin and senseless. They battle against Kitty Galore (voiced by Bette Midler), a hairless Sphinx cat, who plans to enslave humans and take over the world. Her plan is to use malevolent sound waves, from a weapon called "The Call of the Wild" (by the way), at an ultra low frequency (just for dogs) to trigger all dogs to violently rebel against humans. Humans will have to lock them all in kennels. But the movie forgets to mention how Kitty Galore intends to conquer humans. Will she change the frequencies and use the weapon on us? She doesn't specify, but perhaps she could change to an appropriate frequency to trigger our caveman impulses, or something.

Kitty Galore is funny as she reluctantly placates her not so magical magician owner. She became evil because her previous owners treated her like a freak and threw her out after she fell into a vat of hair removal cream (like the Joker from "Batman"). The movie has a couple other funny moments with a house filled of too-lazy-to-move high cats, and a goofy Calico cat voiced by Wallace Shawn (lampooning his role in "The Princess Bride"). Other stars take part in hopes of success, including Neil Patrick Harris, Roger Moore, and Joe Pantoliano, but it doesn't help much.

Some of the most effective scenes are ones where pets give normal pet reactions. The audience actually responded to Diggs whimpering as he was locked in his cage by his former cop partner, played by Chris O'Donnell (in one of the few human roles). The pets only pretend to act normal around humans, but on occasion a little girl stumbles on them talking. She's amazed, no one believes her, and the pets resort to clichés (butt sniffing for dogs).

That's it. Most of the other jokes are dull. The movie becomes so lazy, any action is just meaningless and boring. The movie uses a mix of live action animals, puppetry, and computer animation to bring the pets to life. The CGI mouths attempt to make such absurdity seem real, but who cares when what they say isn't funny or interesting. The 3D wasn't very noticeable at all.

I went to the cinema to watch this movie because my girlfriend really appreciated the first part which I've never seen and she convinced me to come with her. She bought the DVD of the first movie and there was a special gift card in it which allowed her to have a reduction of ten dollars on a ticket for the sequel and so we went to the cinema.

I didn't expect anything from this movie and I wouldn't usually comment on such a movie because it is simply not my kind of genre, but as I see now such horrible votes and the movie entering in the infamous top one hundred bottom list, I thought I'd be better if I might write my opinion, because this movie isn't simply that bad - and I am generally kind of severe on movies! While watching this movie for one and a half hour, I've never taken a look on my watch, I've never felt bored at all and I found this movie very entertaining. There were also a lot of nice laughs, especially the naive but sympathetic pigeon was worth the watch - and let me tell you that it is rather difficult to make me laugh. Beside the pigeon, the little girl which always saw the animals making crazy things while her mother didn't recognize anything was an entertaining running gag, too. Another funny thing was the scene in the animal's Alcatraz which I thought was a nice idea. The collaboration, the prejudices and the growing team spirit between the secret agencies of the cats and the dogs were also some really nice elements in this movie even if they were predictable. And the movie even had something philosophical: Cats and dogs put away their prejudices to save their beloved humans together and fight a common enemy. Well, I know, this is a predictable content, too, but still very touching and even teaching for young kids who are watching this movie. And the idea of adapting the world of James Bond to the world of cats and dogs isn't silly at all, but very funny for the kids, nicely done for the adults who understand some funny allusions and certainly better than most of the boring super agent comedy movie in the key of Austin Powers and other boring stuff.

A part of that, the movie is well animated and has a perfect length. People who really like cats or especially dogs might even give a few stars more, for example for the funny and cute video clips in the end of the movie.

Of course, this movie is just a sequel, it shows nothing innovating and the story is predictable and of course there are no twists in the movie, but you can't expect that from any animation movie a part of the amazing "Wall-E". Some people here say that you should put the children into the cinema to watch this movie and head yourself for the - in my opinion - heavily overrated "Inception" - I mean, you just can't compare those movies and if you take this point as a judgement, it is certain that you may be disappointed.

So, don't listen to some of those really ordinary and exaggerated hate comments and spend some ninety minutes with your kids or younger sister or girlfriend or cat/dog fetish, switch your brain off and enjoy the nice jokes and this very entertaining movie.

5,5 to 6 stars out of 10!