In 1954, cartoonist Brad Anderson made comic strip history by sketching out an anarchic, dopey Great Dane, whom he named Marmaduke. In the decades since, people loved Marmaduke for all of the obvious reasons: His slapstick adventures are effortlessly funny, his I-just-want-to-do-good ethos is naturally endearing and his inherent silliness embodies a kind of freedom to which we all aspire. But more than that, people love Marmaduke because his misgivings are reliable—predictable, even.
And that’s exactly why adapting this character into a film will always be a complicated venture. The effort has been made before. In 2010, Tom Dey directed a live-action Marmaduke, with the dog (he does not speak in the comic strip) voiced by the equally dopey and lovable Owen Wilson. Despite our apparent cultural affinity toward Marmaduke, the film was almost unanimously panned by critics, who denounced it as exhaustingly boring. Herein lies the problem with adapting a newspaper cartoon that is beloved, in part, for its sheer routine. How, exactly, do you turn that repetition into something that’s consistently engaging while still staying true to its delightful, humdrum essence?
This is the challenge facing director Mark A.Z. Dippé as he resuscitates the mischievous pooch a decade after Dey’s famous cinematic flop. Dippé’s computer-animated film stars Pete Davidson as Marmaduke (inspired casting, I know—I’ll get back to that shortly), the well-intentioned Great Dane who just can’t seem to get it right! Within the first few minutes, he finds himself committing a healthy number of faux pas, not least of which is cannonballing into a swimming pool to escape a bee, flooding his neighborhood, and subsequently wrecking his brother’s birthday party.
Some might see old Marmaduke as past saving. The more ambitious, however, will see him as an exciting challenge—one whose naughtiness can only be reigned in by the most skilled of dog trainers. In Marmaduke, this trainer comes in the form of slick-haired, smooth-talking canine guru Guy Hilton (Brian Hull), who takes it upon himself to undertake the most formidable of all tasks: Teaching Marmaduke to be a good boy, once and for all!
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
