(The Disneycember logo is shown, before showing clips from Snow Dogs)
Doug (vo): Merry Christmas...this ain't a Christmas movie. I swear to God, I Googled "Disney Christmas movies", and this is one of the first films that popped up. I never saw it before, and...maybe they said that because there's snow in it, I don't know, but a lot of people have wanted me to review this over the years, so I guess this is kind of like a cheap Christmas present to you. (Sarcastically) Fa-la-la-la-la. Like I said, people have wanted me to talk about this for a while, and I can definitely see why. This is pretty bad. My only memory of this movie is when it came out, everyone was apparently really upset because all the advertising showed these dogs talking to each other and sitting in beach chairs, and so, everyone thought it was going to be about talking snow dogs, but...it's not. I mean, make no mistake, there's still the hideous CG on their face, but they don't actually talk. Aside from that, it's been growing more and more of a reputation as one of the worst Disney movies ever made, and...well, is there anything good about it? Well, by the low bar it's established for itself, I will say, the few positive things I can say about it isn't what it does, but rather what it doesn't do.
Story[]
Doug (vo): Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a dentist in Miami, Florida, who's living the good life. His business is a smashing success and everybody loves him. But when his mother, played by Nichelle Nichols, tells him that he's adopted, that his real mother just passed away, suddenly, his world is turned upside down and he flies out to Alaska, and finds not only was she really loved by the town, but she left him almost everything she owns, including, you guessed it, her snow dogs. He finds out, though, his birth father might be there in town as well, so he sets out to discover who his father is and...I guess just kind of randomly train with these snow dogs. Yeah, they actually don't play that big a part in the grand scheme of things.
Review[]
Doug (vo): Okay, so as I'm finding I do often with films like this that are just so incredibly bad, let me start with the positives...which like I said, aren't many. There were maybe five jokes I got a laugh at in this. I am kind of a sucker for a good "you got served" joke. They're going to pour Gatorade on someone, but it's so cold, it just comes out as this giant ice cube, that was pretty good. And...three others, I don't remember them, I just remembered I laughed three other times. And I mentioned before, I was impressed what this movie didn't do. Let me explain that a little bit more.
(Footage focusing on the townspeople is shown, mostly focusing on James "Thunder Jack" Johnson, George Murphy, Barb and Amelia Brooks)
Doug (vo): Early on, we see this snobby snow dog racer, and as soon as you see him, don't you already know what the plot's going to be? It's going to be a race and this guy is going to be the villain. And then James Coburn walks in and it's like, "Oh, he's going to be the villain, too", and they're going to be the adversaries that Cuba Gooding Jr. is going to have to get around to win this race, because his mother was in the race before, and she only got third, so now, he's going to win the gold for her. And it doesn't do any of that. There is a race, but the whole attitude of the town is more like, "Yeah, we kind of know nobody's going to beat that fancy schmancy guy, so we're just trying to do our best and nobody has ever gotten first in this race". And, I guess, spoiler, nobody ever does by the end, either, it's still the snobby guy who wins. And I don't know, I kind of give the story credit for that. Everyone's just kind of happy to do this race. And with that said, the town does have a fair amount of personality. All the supporting cast, for as cartoony as they look and act, in a bizarre way, do have a little bit of a believability to them. Yes, they're over the top and goofy, but they have real personality that you feel like you can understand very quickly...and not in an annoying way. M. Emmet Walsh kind of plays this pilot/everything else in the town. I really like this bar owner, I'm actually kind of shocked I haven't seen her in more stuff. She has a great look and charm to her. Nichelle Nichols is good as the mother, and like I said, James Coburn is a lot of fun as this kind of bad guy. I guess I don't want to go too much into spoilers, though, again, is there really that much to spoil in this?
(Footage focusing on Ted Brooks is shown, along with footage from Rat Race)
Doug (vo): But, yeah, that's about it. Let's go into what really sucks about this movie. First of all, Cuba Gooding Jr. is awful in this. Now let's be honest, one of the things that's fun to watch about Cuba Gooding Jr. is how over the top he is. I mean, let's face it. He won the Oscar because he was over the top, but it was fine, it worked for that role. Hell, even his acceptance speech was over the top. This is what we like about this guy. And I've seen him be over the top in comedies before and be really, really funny. I love him in Rat Race. He's so funny, because, yeah, he's having these big reactions, but it makes sense. He plays a ref that made a wrong call, so everybody's kind of after his blood, he's trying to keep, like, a low profile. When he's spotted, of course, he reacts big, because he knows everybody's after his head. Here, as soon as he finds out he's adopted, he just overreacts to goddamn everything. I mean, he goes from, like, zero to a million in a millisecond over nothing, like, absolutely nothing.
(Footage focusing on the comedic moments and the editing is shown)
Doug (vo): This is another one of those comedies where the music just doesn't shut up. Every second, there's something whimsical or comedic or cartoony or, I don't know, just something more loud and obnoxious than Cuba Gooding Jr. in this. The movie has no sense of pacing. It'll just kind of go from one joke to another to somebody giving a reaction that's not funny to a moment that's supposed to be tender, but then, it'll be interrupted by someone giving another reaction to something that's not funny. And I'll be honest, as much as I like they don't go the traditional story route with this, I was constantly kind of asking myself, "Why is he staying here again? Why is he training these snow dogs? Why hasn't he just sold off all of his mother's stuff yet?" There's a lot of scenes that are crazy rushed or practically just edited out. As soon as he finds out he's adopted, they cut to a scene of him just walking down the sidewalk, and they actually put audio of Nichelle Nichols talking to him over this footage, when clearly, we need to see that. He just found out he's adopted! Of course we need to see them have a conversation, but no. It's just this audio that they play over this footage, and it makes you feel nothing.
(Footage focusing on Ted's cousin, Rupert, is shown)
Doug (vo): But they cut to a lot of Sisqó acting a lot like Doug E. Doug from That Darn Cat in this. Yeah, I'm so glad he had very little to do in this. I really thought he was going to tag along, it was going to be kind of a buddy-buddy movie, but, Christ, I'm glad he stayed in Miami, 'cause he was the only actor that might have been more annoying than Cuba Gooding.
(Footage focusing on the effects is shown)
Doug (vo): And, yeah, like I mentioned, there's some bad effects in this. I mean, I think it goes without saying, there's going to be some bad CG effects on the dogs and also some really bad green screening, but look at this. There's a scene where he's supposed to be, like, on this thin sheet of ice, and you literally see the little platform holding him in the ice up underwater. Come on, you didn't need to cut to that! We-we could've gotten the idea!
Final thought[]
Doug (vo): The movie's bad, and it's bad for all the reasons you would think it's bad. It's loud, it's annoying, nothing really goes together. But like I said, I was a touch impressed it didn't go the route I thought it was going to go, and the reason I'm bringing that up again is that apparently, this was based on a book. And I know it's going to sound weird, but I kind of want to read the book. I think a story about a guy who just wants to connect with his father and has these snow dogs that he suddenly has that he's trying to train and maybe sort of make a connection with his father because of that, whether dramatic or comedic or both, actually does kind of sound like an interesting concept. I actually do kind of want to check the book out...much more than I ever want to see this movie again. Yeah, no big surprise, I did not enjoy this. I suppose sometimes, it can be so bad, it's kind of humorous in a different way, kind of like Jingle All the Way, how it's not really funny for the reasons it's intending, but because it's so bad at it, it almost becomes funny in a totally different way. But about halfway through the film, it starts to get really boring, like, not really that creatively bad anymore, it's just kind of dull. So even on that level, I don't really know if it really works. But what did you think? 'Cause for all I know, maybe there's a really die hard Snow Dogs fanbase out there that love it for the original reason you're supposed to love it, or maybe love it ironically because it's just so bad. Whatever your thoughts are, merry Christmas, have a wonderful holiday, and hopefully, put on an actual Christmas movie, unlike I did for this. Happy holidays.
(A scene showing Ted falling off a cliff is shown)