The Shaggy Dog DVD Review
Posted by Neil Borenstein on 08.18.2006
Tim Allen's back in another Disney movie - and he's a dog this time!
The Shaggy Dog DVD Review
Cast:
Tim Allen
Kristin Davis
Danny Glover
Robert Downey, Jr.
Zena Grey
Spencer Breslin
Jane Curtin
DVD Information:(credit: www.amazon.com)
Genre: Comedy/Family
Region: Region 1
Number of Discs: 1
Studio: Walt Disney Home Entertainment
DVD Release Date: August 1, 2006
Run Time: 99 Minutes
Specs: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound – English; French and Spanish Subtitles; Wide Screen (2.40:1), Full Screen (1.33:1)
I will start out this review by saying that I have never, and probably will never, see the original version of this movie made back in 1959. So this will not be a comparison of any kind, just merely a taking of the 2006 release on its own.
The Shaggy Dog holds a very simplistic plot that any person – young and old – can comprehend. A man’s involvement with his family at home is minimal based on being work-obsessed. As a result, his family feels neglected, and acts as if their father/husband barely knows them and they barely know him.
In a cruel twist of fate, that same man who has a disdain towards animals turns into one himself (a dog more specifically), and as a result, he becomes closer to his family than he ever could have imagined.
In between this basic premise is that of an evil force, an animal-testing lab that performs cruel experiments with a goal to make lots of money and create a drug that would be highly sought after by those with the wrong intentions. And, a man who probably at first wouldn’t care about this chooses to combat it after “seeing the light” as a dog.
*Spoiler Warning: The following is a summary of the entire movie in great detail. If you wish to not have the entire movie spoiled, and would like to view it without knowing what happens, please skip ahead until it says “Spoiler Warning End”*
The Shaggy Dog begins with a government-looking operation as three men in a helicopter are in search of something, and that something turns out to be the Dog of Ageless Wonder. They are searching in Tibet for this dog, which has seemingly survived numerous years beyond what it should have, living longer than people in a picture the three men are using as a reference.
The dog in the picture, which is a bearded collie, is meditating in a temple with a bunch of monks as a kid walks in the doorway tossing a ball in his hand. The dog looks at what appears to be the head monk, who winks at him to signify that he can play with the boy. As the dog runs out, the boy throws the ball, having the dog run after it in what is a game of fetch. As the dog runs after the ball, the three men searching for him catch him in a net.
We are then shown the Douglas house, and the father, Dave (Tim Allen), heads outside to grab the morning paper. He looks up and sees one of his neighbor’s dogs relieving himself on his bushes, and tells the neighbor (Craig Kilborn) of his displeasure with his “mutt” going to the bathroom in his front yard, which offends the neighbor. The neighbor accuses Dave of hating animals, to which he replies that he doesn’t hate them, he dislikes them.
Dave is a lawyer who is working at becoming the next district attorney as the current one is stepping down, and his current case is to prosecute against a social studies teacher named Justin Forrester, who set a lab ablaze and was arrested for arson. Forrester, who happened to be the teacher of Dave’s daughter Carly, is an animal rights activist, and it is thought he set the lab on fire because he felt they were doing animal testing there, though Forrester denies setting the lab on fire. Carly, who is a member of the animal rescue group, believes her teacher and supports him, much to the dismay of her father.
At the courthouse, Dave is shown pleading to the jury in what would have to be his opening statement in the courtroom, and tells them of all the good things the lab was doing with relation to the members of the jury. For example, when he spoke of how they were trying to find ways to battle obesity, he looked at an obese member of the jury. When he spoke of them trying to find ways to battle hair loss, he spoke directly to a bald man on the jury.
Outside of the courtroom, Dave speaks to Ken Hollister (Danny Glover) and Doctor Kozak (Robert Downey, Jr.) about his display in the courtroom and about how he might be the next DA.
We then head to the lab, Grant and Strictland, where Kozak comes in and speaks to Lance Strictland, who wants to know if he has found out the secret of the dog, thus revealing that the men who went after the dog had been doing so for their lab. They go into a part of the lab where they are holding the dog that was captured, and there is testing to see if they can find out the secret of the dog and if they can take his DNA and transfer it to other species, perhaps even as far as human beings. Kozak did in fact know the secret of the dog. That secret was that the dogs live seven years for every human year but that this dog would actually live out those seven years, and that he is over 300 years old.
As they do this inside of the lab, outside are a bunch of students, with Carly included, that are protesting. Carly is noticed by her father and is dragged away, but she actually goes into the lab with one of her friends to try and see if her teacher was speaking the truth on them doing animal testing. As they walk inside the lab, they notice a dog running past them, which was the captured dog, which had just recently escaped, and the two followed him and drove away with him in hopes of using him as evidence for Forrester’s claims. They would not be able to, however, since he lacked any tags that identified him as a dog taken from the lab.
Dave comes home to find that his dinner is in the microwave and that he missed his son’s, Josh (Spencer Breslin), parent-teacher conference. He also notices a dog at the kitchen table his children and wife, Rebecca (Kristin Davis), are sitting at. He drags the dog, who had been named Shaggy by Carly, into the garage. Shaggy barks and puts his paw on the newspaper clip of Forrester, and as Dave puts his hand out towards Shaggy, Shaggy bites Dave, and a scene is shown of little balls of fur floating through Dave’s body.
Shaggy then goes to lick it better, but Dave still calls animal control and has the dog taken away. As Rebecca goes to check on Dave, he starts talking with a lisp, and then they fight as she becomes upset by his lack of knowledge about what’s going on with his family, as well as his lack of involvement. He makes it better by promising to come home the next day and cook dinner, and then take his wife out for dinner for their anniversary, to which she says he has to back it up. As they kiss, Dave starts scratching his head furiously.
The next morning, Dave is seen laying at the foot of the bed, and then stretches like a dog as he gets up. When he gets up off the bed, he talks about his dream of chasing cars and spins around as if he’s chasing his tail. After stepping out of the shower, he shakes like a dog would shake when they get water on them. He also has a much keener sense of hearing as well as smell. He drinks his coffee with his tongue, and then sniffs the box of cereal before pouring it. He eats his cereal by dunking his head into the bowl and eating it like a dog, all this as he talks to his son about getting better grades or he won’t be able to play football. Before leaving for work, he licks Rebecca’s cheek.
In his front yard, Dave starts sniffing around and seeing the neighbor’s dog once again peeing in the shrubs, and chases it away screaming, “My yard.” Clearly, the transformation to dog has begun.
Kozak is put on the stand as the trial resumes, and Dave brings a document in his mouth to the witness stand for him to look at, and it is the company’s policy on humane animal testing. As the defense objects, Dave growls as the attorney (Annabelle Gurwitch), and then he growls at the judge, Judge Claire Whittaker (Jane Curtin), prompting a recess. He continues his dog-like shenanigans in the restroom.
Dave leaves the courthouse, and heads down to the animal shelter to see if Shaggy has something, disease-wise. When he goes to see Shaggy, he starts yelling at him in the cell, and other dogs start barking at him to which he notices he can hear all the dogs. After going back at Shaggy and asking why he bit him, thinking that Shaggy bit him on purpose because of who he was, we are taken through Dave’s body again to see the little fur balls going through him. After that, Dave turns into a dog that looks exactly like Shaggy, and he starts to understand Shaggy, who tells him to run.
He runs out of the shelter, and the man working at the shelter is confronted by two people who work at Grant and Strictland, asking if he could help as they lost their dog.
Dave continues to run, and stops in front of a store window that has televisions. He sees himself on them, thinks he’s dreaming, and runs directly into the window to wake himself up. He finally comes to the realization that he is a dog.
The two lab workers see Shaggy, say he’s theirs, and take him.
Dave runs home and can’t get in the house. He rings the doorbell and Carly answers, thinking that it’s Shaggy coming back. He tries to talk to her, but all she hears is barking. He tries to tell his kids who he is with Scrabble pieces, but they keep cleaning up after him. Carly tells her brother that she is going with her friend to get a tattoo and she has to go, but when Dave hears this, he runs outside to where her friend is parked and runs at the car, scaring her into driving away, and thus freaking out his kids in the process. He starts to behave when he hears Carly say they should take him back to the pound, and Josh decides to take him to the dog park.
Josh plays Frisbee with Dave, and talks to his friend about missing auditions for a school show, Grease. When Dave comes back with the Frisbee, he sees that Josh is upset.
Back at the lab, Shaggy is in a cage, as the two workers continue to do experiments on him.
When Josh and Dave get back to the house, the issue of dinner comes up, and Rebecca said that Dave was supposed to cook, but he wasn’t home. Carly asks if her mother checked her e-mail, and Dave runs off to the computer. Before he can type out what he wanted to, Carly shuts the laptop computer. They decide to order in, and Dave is forced to sleep in the garage.
When he wakes up, he has turned into a human again. When he goes into his bedroom, Rebecca confronts him as to where he has been since it’s 3 a.m., and when he tells her he turned into a dog, she kicks him out of the room.
At the courthouse the next day, the antics continue. Though he is still human, Dave goes into an elevator with Hollister and a K-9 officer and his dog. The dog smells Dave’s rear, and seems to be really going at it, causing Dave to act a bit strangely. Then Dave’s tongue starts to roll out of his mouth as he begins to pant, but he assures Hollister that he is okay, for which Hollister is becoming worried about making him the next DA.
In the courtroom, Forrester is on the stand with Dave questioning, and he begins to badger him until Forrester says that he saw a monkey that was acting like a dog, which caught Dave completely off guard. Forrester went on saying that he saw a snake with a tail and rats that bark, and when he described what the dog looked like, Dave knew something was up.
At Josh’s school, Dave and Rebecca are meeting with Josh’s teacher about his poor math scores, and Dave starts to say that he is the reasoning for it as he is not home very often due to working too much. The teacher knows how it feels and pulls out a sandwich to eat as she missed lunch, which stops Dave in his tracks with his heightened sense of smell. He then sees a cat on a tree outside the classroom that hisses at him, and Dave runs out of the room and chase the cat, still in human form mind you. He chases the cat all around the neighborhood. He gets scratched by the cat as he tries to reach it in a gutter, and he turns back into a dog. He then gets caught by animal control.
At the lab, the workers have finally been able to figure out how to inject the dog’s DNA into other animals without having any side effects. Kozak is thrilled and rushes off to tell Strictland, as the lab workers are ordered to make as much of the drug as they can.
The kids bail Dave out of the pound, and he goes with Josh to his football game, which he is excited about because he’ll finally get to see Josh play. Unfortunately, Josh is not the most skilled athlete, and he gets put in at tailback late into the game as he is sitting on the bench reading a script of Grease for most of it. Once he goes into the game, the defenders pummel him when he is handed the ball. He heads back to the bench, and two teammates come over and ask why Josh even plays football because he’s bad and nobody likes him, and Dave scares them away by growling at them.
As they walk home, Josh’s friend catches up to him and confronts Josh about not auditioning for a part in a musical for football – a sport he doesn’t even like. Josh replies that his father likes football and that’s why he does it, and Dave, still as a dog, is upset about that. In fact, the only reason Josh is flunking math is because he wants his father to tell him he can’t play football anymore.
Back at home, Carly shows her friend a newsletter she made up for the animal rescue, and just as the two are about to get close, Dave, as dog, runs into the room to break them apart before they can kiss. He is proud, however, of how what Forrester did is making her believe in doing what she’s doing. But before he can get into the mix anymore, he chases after a bone and has the door closed on him before he can go back in.
Outside, Josh is singing songs from Grease, and he knocks on Carly’s door to tell them they should order a pizza as their parents are out to dinner. This reminds Dave about his anniversary promise to Rebecca, and Rebecca is shown sitting in a restaurant by herself, waiting.
When he shows up at the window outside the restaurant with roses in his mouth, she thinks he’s Shaggy. On their ride home, she calls Dave and leaves a message that she doesn’t know how they’ll get past this, breaking another promise.
He goes to bed in the garage again as a dog, and wakes up human in the middle of the night like the last time.
He goes over to Hollister’s house because he wants a warrant to search Grant and Strictland, thinking they are hiding something. Hollister asks why Forrester would have changed his plea if they were hiding something, to which Dave doesn’t understand, and that’s because he was thrown off the case and was not informed of such a change. He is blasted by Hollister, who tells him to get his head straight or find another job.
Dave chooses to go to the lab himself. He tells a homeless guy to throw a stick for five bucks, and that enables him to turn himself back into a dog. He goes into the building through the vent. Inside, Kozak and his workers are getting ready to inject Strictland, and Dave sees this through the vent of the room they are doing it in. After injecting him with the drug, Strictland goes into shock, and Kozak did that on purpose saying it doesn’t allow him (Strictland) to speak because he (Kozak) wants to take over the company. The two workers object at first, but when they are offered to be cut in, they agree to help out. Dave makes a noise in the vent and they hear him, but he runs out of the lab, knowing the truth, that Forrester was framed.
The kids begin to worry that their parents are splitting up, and Dave, as dog, comes back to the house and is let into the house to go take a nap. He overhears his kids talking about him not caring, and he goes back to the Scrabble game to once again try and tell them who he is. Finally, he is able to spell out, “I AM DAD”. When asked how, he spells out, “GRANT AND STRICTLAND”. Carly says that she got Shaggy there, and then Shaggy bit dad, and they put two and two together, and VOILA! They finally figure out that the dog is, in fact, their father.
Carly goes to call her mother, and Dave goes to Josh’s backpack and grabs the book for Grease, as well as a math book.
Dave hears the neighbor’s dog peeing in the bushes again, but as he runs out the front door, he is shocked. The two workers had paralyzed him, realizing that he is Mr. Douglas, and they grab him and bring him back to the lab.
Josh and Carly see the workers driving away, and they run after the car to try and stop them. Unfortunately, the car pulls away.
At the lab, Kozak taunts Dave while he is locked up in a cage. He, in retaliation, bites Kozak’s finger. As Kozak and his workers leave the room, Kozak begins to scratch himself.
In the room, Dave talks to Shaggy. The other animals tell Dave to meditate.
Josh and Carly hitch a ride with Carly’s friend to go find their father.
Meanwhile, Dave is meditating with the other animals in the lab, and soon enough, he turns back into a human. He is, however, still locked in the cage and needs to get the keys. With the help of the other animals, a dog-snake especially, Dave is able to get the keys and unlock himself. He helps the animals escape through the vent. Before he can get himself out, however, the workers come back in and zap him.
The kids pick up a dog that they think is their father, but is Shaggy. They drive on to go to their mother.
The workers lock Dave back into a cage, and the dog-snake slithers back in through the vent, with a chimp climbing down it. The chimp zaps the workers, and gets Dave out.
At their mother’s office, the kids try and explain to their mother that the dog is their father, but it’s Shaggy and they can’t prove anything to her. Dave calls her office, and she asks if he knows what is going on and why they brought Shaggy to her. He tells her it’s not Shaggy and tells her his real name (of which I cannot spell, but it’s what translates into Dog of Ageless Wonder.) He is driving with other animals in his car, and he is distracted. He tells her to meet him at the courthouse.
On his way to the courthouse, Dave gets stuck in traffic, just as the case continues in the courtroom. Dave decides to run it instead, and he ends up turning back into a dog. He, as dog, meets his family at the courthouse. As he tells his wife he loves her as a dog, he ends up turning back into a person, a naked person at that, but a person. He puts on clothes his family brought him and heads to the courtroom.
He darts in and convinces Hollister to let him back on the case. He orders Kozak to stay as he tries to leave, and Hollister allows him back on the case. They bring Kozak back on the stand, and Dave questions him about his lab trying to create a drug that will extend human life. They end up having a growl-off, and Dave is taken out. But he darts back in, and tosses the bailiff’s nightstick, for which Kozak chases after. Kozak then grows a tail, and he is taken into custody as Dave’s point was proven and Kozak is exposed.
When he walks outside, Dave finds his car totaled because the animals drove it, and Hollister tells him he is a definite for DA. He has a moment with his family, and they finally end up taking a trip that he had promised them for a long time.
The movie closes with Shaggy, who has to return to Tibet, surfing in the ocean and Dave catching a Frisbee.
*Spoiler Warning End*
The Shaggy Dog is hardly a blockbuster flick, but it is an entertaining movie for audiences of all ages. Though it’s more of a movie for the kids than anybody else, it can still be enjoyed by anybody considering the great acting and comedic ways of both Tim Allen, and at points Robert Downey, Jr.
The movie was highly predictable from the most general sense with regards to the plot, but I did find it interesting how Dave Douglas would go back and forth between man and dog, something I didn’t except as I anticipated he would remain a dog throughout the film. That twist made it a bit more intriguing considering how he had to adapt to each situation with that in mind.
Overall, for lack of a better term, this was a “cute” movie. Nothing grand but definitely entertaining for the hour and a half it’s on. I definitely enjoyed it.
Video Quality
The video is good and I found no major problems with it. It helps that this DVD offers both full screen and wide screen presentations, so the option of whether or not you want black bars is there. The special effects and computer animations are kind of obvious, and it becomes a bit distracting, but doesn’t really hurt the viewing that much.
Score: 7.0
Audio Quality
Though there was nothing dramatic with the sounds in this movie, there was nothing bad about it either. Sometimes music will really enhance a film, and that wasn’t really the case here. But it didn’t need it.
Score: 8.0
Special Features
Deleted Scenes
Kozak And Strictland – Kozak arrives at the Grant and Strictland lab with coffee in hand, and he is confronted by Strictland asking how court went and if he uncovered anything about the secret of the dog (this part is actually in the film.) They head onto an elevator where Strictland asks why they are even trying this case and he says he needs the drug they are experimenting to create because his doctor told him he doesn’t have that much longer to live. Kozak stops the elevator just to make sure he is getting a piece of the pie when the drug is created, and Strictland assures him that he will be taken care of. 1:40
Additional Dog Park – Josh takes Dave, as dog, to the dog park, where the other dogs are shown sniffing his butt, and then request to see his stomach. He rolls over, and they laugh at him, as that is a form of submission. 1:13
Gwen And Larry – The chimp is playing with a cattle prod, which human Dave takes away as he wheels the animals out of the lab. Meanwhile, the two lab workers are locked in the cage, and the guy tells the girl that he’s really attracted to her, which she returns with a slap. 0:28
Alternate Ending For Kozak – This is basically the same ending as in the film, just that after Kozak fetches the nightstick, his head turns into that of a dog instead of growing a tail. 0:56
Bloopers
This is a mix of outtakes and the actors, Tim Allen mostly, goofing off on set. Some of the animal outtakes are on here too. There’s some funny stuff in this short piece. 2:35
Bark Along: Bonus Feature For Your Dog To Enjoy!
There’s a Bark-Along For Dogs, which is basically the sounds dogs make – arf, woof, ruff and yip included – with pictures of the various dogs in the film shown throughout. 2:23
Then there’s a Sing-Along For Humans, which is Woof! There it is. Yeah, it’s cool for the kids, but kind of corny for the adults. It is kind of funny, though, I have to admit. This also has the various dogs of the film being shown just like the dog version. 2:24
Audio Commentary
The film may be watched with commentary from director Brian Robbins and producer David Hoberman with the wide screen version only.
The 411: The 411: The Shaggy Dog is a cute little Disney flick that will attract the younger audience more than the older one, but can be tolerated by everybody. Tim Allen’s comedic attributes definitely help this film, as does Robert Downey, Jr.’s acting. I would recommend seeing it – but I think you would be better off ordering it On Demand or renting it rather than spending $15-20 on it.
