Old Dogs
Starring: John Travolta, Robin Williams, Seth Green
Director: Walt Becker
Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes
Zero stars
Here’s how long the misbegotten alleged comedy Old Dogs has been sitting on the Hollywood crap-shelf: Bernie Mac is in it, and he died more than a year ago.
In fact, Bernie’s subsequent death is one of a trio of offscreen events cursing this empty bastard step-child of Three Men and a Baby. There was the death of John Travolta’s son Jett (his wife Kelly Preston and daughter Ella Bleu are in the movie), and Robin Williams — who performs here as if sleepwalking — subsequently had major heart surgery.
But if there has been no good time to release Old Dogs for reasons of optics, there is also no good time to release Old Dogs period.
This is a movie that, clearly, no one wanted to be in. Their dead eyes and exaggerated delivery of clunker dialogue convey as much. It’s the kind of movie where John Travolta is given expositional lines like, “You can’t adopt twins now! We have a presentation to the Yamada company tomorrow. It’s potentially the biggest client of our careers. We’ve worked all our lives for this! Is there any more information I can convey to the audience that you presumably already know?”
There are continuity problems that are just plain sloppy. Director Walt Becker (Wild Hogs) can’t even pull off hits to the groin (you know they’re coming in a movie like this) with as much panache as an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Moreover, the movie can’t decide whether these two old dogs are really old. Their medical cabinets are full of pills, and they’re repeatedly being confused for grandparents (when they’re not being confused for a gay couple, which is, y’know, hilarious, especially if it makes people recoil). At other times, Travolta’s character is catnip to the ladies. The ailing Williams could pass for a senior, but you don’t look at Travolta — even at age 55 and with a few extra pounds — and think “Grandpa.”
As Old Dogs open, sports marketers Charlie and Dan (Travolta and Williams) are pitching some Japanese businessmen, and Charlie is softening them up with an hilarious story about a resort weekend seven years earlier that resulted in Dan getting drunkenly married and annulling the marriage the next day.
Cue a face from the past, the brief-ex Vicki (Kelly Preston), who introduces Dan to his seven-year-old twins (Connor Rayburn and Ella Bleu Travolta).
Seems Vicki is going to jail for two weeks for her role in an activist protest, giving the nonplused Dan a fortnight to become a dad — this while he and Charlie and their flunkie junior accountant (Seth Green) try to nail down an eight-figure account.
Trouble is, Dan lives in an adults-only condo, so they all move into Charlie’s place, where the kids do zany things like mix up their dad’s and Charlie’s medicine. And hilarity ensues (one contraindicated pill gives Travolta a Joker smile).
Of course, the flimsy subtext of Old Dogs is that Dan learns to channel his inner-dad. To that end, for no apparent reason, Dan and Charlie hire a high-tech puppeteer (Mac) who wires Dan up in a body suit so they can control his movements to make him more nurturing with his daughter.
This gag plays out even more lame than it sounds.
But then everything in Old Dogs does.
jim.slotek@sunmedia.ca
