Film Reviews: Bratz, El Cantante, Hot Rod and more

UNDERDOG Poor Underdog, ending up Disney’s bitch and working for the folks who snuffed Old Yeller. The pill-popping canine crime-fighter from the 1960s Total TeleVision cartoon comes to the big screen as a realistically (I guess that’s what you’d call it) computer-animated beagle who talks in Jason Lee’s pleasantly scruffy Earlspeak. Only now, he’s the agent of bonding between a widowed ex-cop (Oliver Stone—oops, James Belushi) and his sullen son (Alex Neuberger), whose coming together forms the movie’s emotional arc. It was probably a good idea not to traumatize kids with the static, violent weirdness of the old TV show, but director Frederik Du Chau and his three screenwriters haven’t replaced it with anything more memorable: Even the promising team of Peter Dinklage’s mad scientist Simon Barsinister and Patrick Warburton’s henchman Cad turns out to be a bust. But Underdog does get an upgrade for the show’s Sweet Polly Purebred, here a literal horndog (voiced by Amy Adams) who dreams of going “off-leash” with the hero: “There isn’t a hose cold enough to break that up.” The running time is 84 minutes. To answer your question: Yes, there are “outtakes.” (Citywide) (Jim Ridley)

WHO’S YOUR CADDY? Name this movie: an up-and-comer from the city buys his way into a high-class country club, but the WASPy club president won’t stand for it. Meanwhile, a poor young caddy is secretly the best player on the course. When the parvenu and the WASP finally decide to settle it all with a high-stakes match out on the links, the caddy steps in to make sure our hero wins. No, it’s not Caddyshack — just swap Jews (Rodney Dangerfield) for blacks (Big Boi) and you’ve got Who’s Your Caddy? The movie, of course, is terrible; God knows why the writers went to the trouble of “improving” on the plot, giving Big Boi, unlike Dangerfield, some deep motivation (he’s trying to avenge his father, an old-time caddy who was kicked off the course) and adding... midgets. (Citywide) (Charles Petersen)

Ganging up: Thomas Turgoose gives an extraordinary debut performance as a neophyte skinhead. (Photo by Dean Rogers)

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