The K9 Team meets Spy Kitties as the spy spoof sequel to the 2001 hit kids movie relegates the human cast to the litter tray and focuses on its four-legged stars, both real animals and CGI animation.
As before, cats and dogs are rivals in a high-tech espionage war, each seeing it as their job to keep humans safe. Alongside characters returning (though not all with the same different voices) from the first film are Anatolian Shepherd Butch (Nick Nolte), dim sheepdog Sam (Michael Clarke Duncan), and grown up Beagle puppy Lou (Neil Patrick Harris) who’s now running DOGS, the canine equivalent of the CIA. To which, despite Butch’s protests, is recruited Diggs (James Marsden), an over-enthusiastic cat-hating German Shepherd police dog with a habit of charging off to do his own thing and screwing everything up.
Pitted against them is their feline counterpart, MEOWS. However, they’re in a bit of a cat flap because former agent Kitty Galore (Bette Midler), a once pampered Persian now living with a circus magician, has gone rogue and is bent on destroying the dog-human bond and then securing world domination in revenge for losing all her hair and her previous owners.
So now, in an unprecedented interspecies move, the long-time foes are having to work together.
Which leaves Diggs, Butch, water-phobic MEOWS agent Catherine (Christina Applegate) and (in one of many bad puns) bird-brained stool pigeon Seamus trying to track down Galore before she pulls off her dastardly plan. Yes, it’s Mission:Impussible.
It’s unlikely (I would hope!) that kids will get the in-jokes, but there’s plenty of gags, gadgets and (quite literally) fur-flying action to keep them happy. The grown ups, meanwhile, can smirk at the many Bond references (Galore first seen stroking her pet white mouse, a steel jawed killer named Paws, Shirley Bassey’s theme song, and, best of all, Roger Moore’s tuxedo-suited MEOWS boss Tab Lazenby) along with a cameo by first film villain Mr Tinkles in an inspired Silence of the Lambs send-up and a scene involving a bunch of moggies all high on catnip. There’s even a clever satirical allusion to the CIA’s use of waterboarding interrogation too!
Other than some aerial sequences, the 3D doesn’t really add anything to the experience and the pacing might be a bit slow in places, but as top to tail entertainment goes I guess you could call this pedigree fun.
BBFC Guidelines – Contains mild slapstick violence, scary scenes, language and toilet humour
Review by Mike Davies