The context of a talking dog with superpowers is improbable. A live-action film about a childhood icon whose lasting impact transgressed four decades should be deplorable.

Disney and Spyglass Entertainment have recreated Underdog, the classic cartoon series from Saturday mornings about a loveable mutt, and expanded a vague, but interesting concept into a full-length feature. Talking dogs included.

An unnamed beagle (voiced by Jason Lee) is captured and locked away in the fortified laboratory used by Simon Barsinister (played by Peter Dinklage (1)) and his thesaurus-reliant henchman Cad (Patrick Warburton). The animal escapes near-tampering of his doggy DNA and begins running around the lab room at top speeds, ears a flapping. The chase comes to a halt when the beagle crashes into a shelf of glass beakers and unidentifiable liquids, spilling a monster Molotov cocktail over our friend’s fur, imbuing him with an encyclopedia of superpowers. This biochemical shower provides the dog with animal abilities that far surpass his own, flight, strength, speed, etc.

The film’s first of many subtexts is clearly a cinematic preamble to the Underdog story that I watched as an eight-year-old (2). As a young tyke, I never cared how Underdog became empowered. All I knew was the hero downed an energy pill and suddenly gained enough power to be a one-dog wrecking crew. But this back story is clearly an attempt to drag the old-school cartoon narrative into the realms of contemporary context and to distill the continuity down to plotline A follows plotline B (plus it all subtexts included it probably adds another forty minutes to what would be the equivalent length of a day-time soap opera.

James Unger (played by James Belushi), a one-time cop who quit the force and become the new nightwatchman at Barsinister’s lab (3), finds the beagle in the streets (and by finding him I mean running him over with a car, but luckily the dog’s uninjured) and brings the wayward quadruped home, hoping to offer the beagle up as a gift to his teenage son. At home we see the true struggle of a single parent on a low- to mid-level income strive for the affection of an only child. Unger is a defunct cop-turned-security guard, who quit his cop gig to spend time with his son, a teen truant who wants little to do with his middle-aged old man. The dog, nicknamed Shoeshine for his propensity to lick Unger’s shoes, quickly garners the affection of James’ son, Jack, (Alex Neuberger) a loner kid with few friends save one peer, Molly (Taylor Momsen), the journalista-next-door with Bambi eyes and a slight come-hither attitude that sucks Jack right in. She’s a good kid, and an aspiring reporter, always looking for the next story. Jack’s on the constant search for notoriety, a little fame, some attention, and he soon figures man’s best friend might be that meal ticket even if he has to live vicariously through the dog’s exploits. It’s evident that Jack has a thing for Molly. And Shoeshine falls for Molly’s dog, Polly Purebred, animal of same name as Underdog’s love interest in the cartoon series.

Jack quickly learns that he’s not alone when he discovers Shoeshine’s ability to talk, among other talents such as wrecking his dad’s house and leaving giant messes lying around (4). The pair develop Shoeshine’s hero identity after the beagle foils a jewel robbery orchestrated by Barsinister to help pay for his experiments. Realizing that Shoeshine is their dog, the two formulate a calculated plan (which indirectly works out) to capture the canine crusader again to extract his DNA and create more doses of what turned Shoeshine into a superhero.

While watching Underdog, we’re constantly reminded of the “great power, great responsibility” mantra (5). As Shoeshine’s the reluctant hero just coming to grips with being an intelligent and articulate dog with some extra get-up-and-go. Eventually, the beagle’s talked into undergoing the costumed identity and Underdog is born.

Of course Jack and his juiced companion continue on with their exploits, but most of the movie follows the simple plotline of the cartoon. The film introduces all the main characters of the animated series –- Underdog/Shoeshine, Polly, Barsinister and his henchman Cad, and even Riff Raff, the canine gangster — while including the new characters of James and Jack Unger, and Molly, placing them in danger on separate occasions, only so Underdog can make the ultimate sacrifice to free his new-found friends (6).

It’s easy to hate a film for what it’s doing: poaching a childhood favorite. How many Rocky and Bullwinkle or Garfield movies does it take before Hollywood finally says enough? However, Underdog gets from beginning to end with a seamless thread, while unraveling subplot after subplot, enough to keep a young child occupied for just under an hour and a half. Sure, the adults in the theater who grew up on Underdog will find some fault with the movie, but children should love Underdog. He’s a hero, he’s a regular dog, and he makes tough decisions for the right reasons.

*****

(1) I never gave much thought to the actor who would play Simon in a real-life Underdog movie, but after watching Dinklage’s performance I’m pretty impressed with the casting of the villains.
(2) I’m pretty sure that it isn’t exactly Barsinister’s company, but the miscreant only works there and conducts off-the-books experiments on dogs in his down time, probably between his crocheting and watching reruns of Gilmore Girls.
(3) Growing up on such cartoon animal fare probably warped my cognitive abilities a great deal.
(4) As much house pet humor as Underdog makes, there’s not a single instance of Shoeshine raising a leg to relieve himself — which understandably might move the film’s rating past that of a kiddie picture, but seriously what kid hasn’t seen some random dog take a No. 1 break.
(5) Frankly, aside from the horrible gut-wrenching third film, Uncle Ben’s speech from the first Spider-Man movie is one of the worst moments of superhero cinema, followed closely with Tommy Lee Jones’s performance as Two-Face.
(6) It’s actually through this pseudo-martyrdom that the film introduces the blue energy pills that those of us who’ve followed the cartoon recall as being a subversive drugs proponent (or at least I do).