Guilty Parties Involved: New Line “Oh crap we’re out of Hobbit movies” Cinema, Jamie Kennedy, Alan Cumming, 64 thousand bad CGI shots and some other poor souls. Directed by Lawrence Guterman, who also brought us 2001’s “Cats and Dogs”.

Fun-Crap Rating: 8 out of 10

2005 / 94 Minutes / PG
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: I didn’t go blind watching it.

Really terrible part: While getting its diaper changed “Mask Baby” pees in 6 different directions, most of them landing on Jamie Kennedy, then shoots him in the face with a firehouse-strength blast of urine. Also the Clint Eastwood parody bit is inexcusable (Lawrence Gutenburg should be Unforgiven for it).

Memorable line: “WHERE’S MY MAAAAAASKKKK???” screams Loki (Alan Cumming) as he whirls around a museum. Truly awful.

I wasn’t there when this movie was greenlit but it must have gone something like this:

New Line Executive 1
“Hey, didn’t ‘The Mask’ make a lot of money 10 years ago?”

Executive 2
“Yeah, like $120 million. It was pretty cheap to make too, I think we only spent like $25 mil on it.”

Executive 1
“Wow that buys a lot of coke! The Mask franchise is red-hot! We should whip out another one!”

Executive 2
“Jim Carrey won’t do it - even after I told him not to worry, the script is just as bad as ‘The Grinch’”

Executive 1
“We’ll show that loser! Let’s go ahead and make a Mask movie without him and watch as he cries all the way to the unemployment line!”

Executive 2
“Sounds good but somebody’s gotta be in it.”

Executive 1
“What about Jamie Kennedy? He’s cheap! That way we can spend more on shitty special effects.”

Executive 2
“Ok but he has to have a baby in it - you know, to get the female crowd - and the baby has to have Mask powers.”

Executive 1
“I know! ‘Son of the Mask’!”

Executive 2
“Brilliant! Let’s spend $100 million on this turd and tell our shareholders it’s the ‘next Lord of the Rings’”

That’s the only way I can imagine this piece of shit getting made because it’s probably the lamest most uncalled for sequel since “Mimic 3″ However it’s also so incredibly bad it makes for a great Shitty Movie Night T

The plot. oh God help us. Jamie Kennedy plays this aspiring animator (If he wants to be an animator so bad why doesn’t he move to India?) with a baby-wanting wife who comes off as a desperately poor man’s Renee Zellweger. His dog named Otis (the dog in the original was Milo, ha ha ha) finds the Mask and Kennedy puts it on for a Halloween party. (First rule of shitty movies: Have a masquerade ball scene. It’s sad how true this is) A long really really so-bad-you’ll-think-you’re-in-hell lame-ass musical number at the party ensues led by Mask-enabled Kennedy and he then goes home (still as Mask-man) and jumps in bed with his wife. Do the math cause we can’t show the kids in the audience what happens.

The next day his wife announces she’s pregnant! (Yes, the VERY NEXT DAY) We then get a montage of the next 9 months, complete with an ultrasound of the “mask baby” bouncing around inside the womb and playing cha-cha’s - you really have to see this shit to believe it. Meanwhile his “Mask antics” at the party get Kennedy a promotion at his workplace but he can’t find the Mask!

Why not? Well because the dog has it! Once the baby gets born the dog becomes jealous and decides to use the Mask to get rid of the kid. We then get this completely lame sequence of the dog diagramming what he’s going to do to the kid a la Wile E. Coyote and a really bad sequence of the kid using his “mask powers” (that he was born with) to stop him. So Kennedy only wears the Mask I think twice in this piece of shit, the rest of the time it’s on the dog as he fights the kid. There’s also this whole “fatherhood” crap going on with Kennedy being awaken at all hours of the night to feed the baby. He does this as if he’s sleepwalking, at one point almost feeding the baby a small lamp with a broken bulb instead of a bottle. Really. Strangely enough the baby crying never wakes up his mom during these scenes, apparently because she wouldn’t be dumb enough to feed it a lamp and therefore it wouldn’t be “funny”.

If this sounds too awful to be true, well, believe me it’s real because I lived to tell the tale. Barely. Along the way Loki (Alan Cummings) shows up to get his mask back because his god-dad (Sigh. Bob Hoskins) is bitching at him to get it. Loki rides around in a car with license plates that read “LOW KEY” (shoot me now) and checking out all newborn babies to see which is “the one”. This plays like a cross between “The Ten Commandments” and “The Terminator” except written by a coked-up moron. For example, Loki sucks babies’ moms into vacuum cleaners so he can examine the kids. Yes that sucks all right.

Eventually Loki kidnaps Kennedy’s mask-baby and decides to adopt him (since he can piss in 6 directions and such) Kennedy must then don “The Mask” and get his son back via a completely stupid “showdown” with Loki complete with giant hammers, hand grenades (also giant) and anvils (again, giant). All this stuff is obviously supposed to be an homage to classic Warner Bros cartoons (they’re even extremely long segments of those classic cartoons in this film as the baby watches them on TV to learn “tricks”) but it’s so badly done you could literally hook electromagnets up to Chuck Jones’ corpse and power all of California as he spins in his grave.

I’m not a good enough writer to even come close to describing how bad this film is, complete with its “The END??” ending of having the mom become pregnant again. (”Daughter of the Mask?”) But it IS so horribly bad that it makes a great Shitty Movie Night title, even if Jones’ wife begged us to turn it off about halfway in. (A first!) In fact, it’s probably the worst and most offensively bad big-budget movie I have ever seen, even crappier than The Grinch or Batman & Robin. If you watch it to laugh at the badness you won’t be disappointed, but be warned - it’ll take strength!

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 8 per person

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) A full-screen clip of an old Warner Bros cartoon plays.
2) The baby dances.
3) The baby cries and annoys Kennedy.
4) Someone farts.
5) Loki’s outfit changes.
6) Bob Hoskins screams LOOOOKKKIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!
7) Jamie Kennedy is a moron.
The masked-dog snickers and looks at the camera.
9) Bodily fluid flies through the air.
10) You want to tear your own eyeballs out.

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Guilty Parties Involved: Starring a bunch of nobodies and Jeremy Irons in possibly the most outlandishly over-the-top scene chewing villain role in history.

Fun-Crap Rating: 10 out of 10

2000 / 107 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: The breastplate! (More on this later)

Really terrible part: Anytime Jeremy Irons mouth opens, Blue Lips, hell, pretty much everything.

Memorable line: Jeremy Irons, literally screaming “LET THEIR BLOOD RAIN FROM THE SKKKKKKKKKKYYYYYYYYYY!” with his hands curled into hooks and the eyes bugging out of his head.

I’m disappointed in Jones! (the guy who runs this site) We’ve been having these Shitty Movie Nights (SMN) for a few years now yet all this time he’s owned the DVD of “Dungeons & Dragons” and never suggested we watch it. Unthinkable! So we come to a certain SMN and it’s decided to watch some crap one of us already owns. It ends up being “Legend” and “Dungeons & Dragons”. (Jones has “Legend” cuz he’s a huge Tom Cruise fan. Hell, if Cruise showed up in a Mary Kate & Ashley videogame he’d probably buy that too!:)

Tom aside, “Legend” was just lame and boring but “Dungeons & Dragons” was a masterpiece of hilariously bad moviemaking! Sure they probably didn’t have a very big budget but who cares - they could have tried a little harder than they did. What am I saying? I’m glad they sucked balls at making this movie because it was more entertaining that 90% of the “good” films I’ve ever watched!

Right off the bat Jeremy Irons walks into the movie with a pose. God, words can’t describe it. Just imagine the lamest “damn, I’m in a shitty movie, I’m not even gonna TRY” villain walk an actor could do and that’s it. A dragon is then killed, its blood spills into a waterway in the middle of the room, the blood then catches on fire, spreads outside the castle and ignites a lake. If that sounds dumb in print imagine how stupid it looks on film!

This fire allows the movie’s “heroes” to sneak into the Wizard School and steal crap. They’re thieves you know, and are reminded of this when someone tells them later in the film: “That’s the problem with you thieves. always stealing things that don’t belong to you.” Seriously, this is written-on-bar-napkin-after-your-tenth-drink level dialog here, and it’s great! One of the heroes looks like a young Harrison Ford (I’ll call him Harry Jr henceforth) and the other one is a really badly racially stereotyped black character named “Snails” By this I mean 1930’s movie black stereotype, which is even worse. But you know, all stereotypes aside Snails is just a lame-ass annoying-as-hell character anyway so when he dies later on you’ll probably cheer and laugh when his buddy goes “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” in a way that puts Shatner’s “KHAN!” to shame.

In the wizard school the daring duo meets “Librarian chick” who comes off as a desperately poor man’s Rachel Weisz (aka Mummy Chick) She has some map that the bad guys want so she ends up tagging along with the doorknobs. The filmmakers obviously haven’t read “How Dowdy Chicks Become Hot 101″ or maybe they just skimmed the first few chapters because, see, this chick starts out correctly dowdy (glasses, vest, hair pinned up) but after only a few minutes she’s lost her glasses AND her hair comes down, complete with a few scenes of her running. (Think the end of “Tomb Raider”) C’mon people! This has to be done slowly to build tension! She can’t just throw all the goods out there like that, what will keep the audience watching?

Oh wait, the audience will keep watching to see what the hilariously bad villains will do next. See not only is there Irons (whose character’s name “Profion” sounds like one of those drugs you should “ask you doctor” about) but there’s Blue Lips as well. See Irons pulls the strings but it’s Blue Lips that actually chases down our heroes. Why call him Blue Lips? Well, to frighten his enemies he wears bright blue lipstick which, ya know, doesn’t really go with his red cape or black armor but I guess who gives a damn? He also talks and moves very slowly, which probably explains why the only character he manages to catch (and kill) is Snails.

Everybody in this movie is looking for a rod. (That’s their term, not mine. A “rod”) Not just any rod, but a magical one that can unite the kingdom or some such BS. “American Beauty”’s Thora Birch - playing a larger-breasted version of Queen Amidala (wears Geisha outfits, bitches at a Senate) - is also interested in getting the rod so she can save her people, or the whales, or. who cares? She’s wasted and tries to play it straight, making you actually feel sorry for her (until you remember she had to at one point said YES to this role).

So our heroes run around with the bad guys trying to stop them. Along the way they pick up a dwarf who tags along but only shows up in every other scene. The editor was probably like: “Hm, cutaway to reaction shot of hot chick or gross dwarf? Hot chick! Next scene? Hot chick! Oh wait, can’t forget the dwarf. There he is, now it’s back to the hot chick!” They also run across some tree people, a booby-trapped maze filled with eyeballs and an elf woman wearing The Breastplate.

The Breastplate was one of the damndest things I’ve ever seen (and yes, I’ve watched “Tank Girl”) Imagine if you had some of that Magic Shell stuff for ice cream that hardens but it was made of liquid metal. Ok? Now imagine that poured over a well-endowed female to form a breastplate armor. That’s what this thing looked like, complete with navel groove. I don’t know how this elf could bend over wearing the thing, but it certainly was attention grabbing! She also wore what looked to be khaki pants with it and matching liquid-metal leg guards.

The end of this movie is a “thrilling” sequence of flying dragons battling each other, with special effects so bad you think you’re watching a Playstation 2 game. Jeremy Irons screams, Blue Lips dies (I think) and Thora Birch does a voice-over saying “Our people are free!” To save time and money this is over a shot of a graveyard for a true “WTF?” factor, it then pans down to reveal they’ve buried Snails. His “grave” consists of 4 rocks piled on each other with the top one scratched with his name. But that’s not all! Some magical shit happens and apparently he’s not dead, so the remaining characters (Harry Jr, Librarian Chick and I think Breastplate woman) all magically swirl away into the air, obviously leaving it open for a sequel!

All in all “Dungeons and Dragons” is probably the most enjoyable bad movie I’ve ever watched. Unlike a lot of bad movies it’s not boring because stuff actually happens in it (something that keeps Ed Wood movies from being fun, for example) but everything that happens is of course stupid as hell. A true crap classic!

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 5

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) The dwarf is suddenly missing from a scene(s) he should be in. Bonus: Take another drink when he finally re-appears!
2) You see a swooping fake CGI shot of a building’s exterior (Skip this one if you can’t hold your liquor - trust me)
3) When the camera cuts away to the librarian chick looking mad about something.
4) You see something involving eyeballs. (Apparently the director has an eyeball fetish - only explanation really)
5) You see The Breastplate!
6) Thora Birch shows up (Like the dwarf it’s quite sporadic)
7) Magic dust flies through the air and a “hole” in reality is formed and jumped through.
You hear the word “Rod”.

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Guilty Parties Involved: Vin Diesel, Keith “You gotta give that baby a REAL name!” David and Thandie Newton. Oh yeah, and get this - JUDI DENCH! (She musta passed on 2 Fast 2 Furious but agreed to this after they caved to her demands of 30 mil)

Fun-Crap Rating: 4 out of 10

2004 / 119 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: The fact that it ends.

Really terrible part: Color-changing spike-covered CGI dogs. And a lot of other stuff.

Memorable line: At one point Vin Diesel croaks out “It’s been a long time since I smelled beautiful” so you’re wondering if he’s talking about Thandie Newton or should take a bath.

For starters don’t worry. There IS a part in this movie where someone screams out “RIDDICK!!!!” because, as you probably have noticed, it’s actually a law that in a shitty movie the bad guy must scream out the hero’s name. See, it’s perfectly ok for a good guy to scream out a bad guy’s name (ahem, KHHHHAAAANNNNN!!!!! anyone?) but the reverse.. Eh.

Anyway this is a sequel to the cult classic hit “Pitch Black” which kinda launched Vin Diesel’s career. See in Hollywood it’s always considered a “good idea” to make a 100 million dollar sequel to a 20 million dollar sleeper-hit that made 25 million. I think this has only worked once and that was because James “I am a God” Cameron was in charge (Speaking of course about “Terminator 2″).

Unlike T2 Riddick (Chronicles of) was a bomb so I guess they won’t get their precious franchise they were after. So all the time they spend building this mythology in the “world of Pitch Black” is wasted. They’ve got all this stupid crap like “elementals” played by Judi Dench, this planet-conquering Borg-ripoff race of jerks called “Necromongers” trying to convert people, prison planets, pumping your veins with blue anti-freeze to traverse space. WHO CARES?

Damn this is sounding like a normal review - I’d better watch myself! This movie is just kind of “there” The effects aren’t so hot but nothing is so bad that you’ll enjoy it on that level either. The action is all watered-down PG-13 BS (even in the unrated director’s cut) You might get a few laughs from the dialog (aforementioned line about smelling beautiful) but it’s mostly a chore to watch this thing.

Maybe some people would be into this movie but not me, and not even on a Shitty Movie Night level. Usually a lame script and overdone special effects are a sure-fire recipe for badness but here it fizzles on both levels. If you see it to rent for a buck it might be worth it, otherwise there’s plenty of “better” bad movies out there.

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 6 per person

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) Riddick takes off or puts on his goggles (Have a strong stomach).
2) You see carved faces (Also have a strong stomach).
3) Someone says “Take the money”.
4) Judi Dench shows up and floats through a scene (Probably between doing episodes of “As Time Goes By”)
5) Thandie Newton’s acting sucks (Drink as soon as she shows up to save time).

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Guilty Parties Involved: Halle Berry, the guy from Law & Order (not Jerry Orbach, the Ben guy) Sharon Stone (still alive) and directed by some dude with 1 name (Pissoff I think it was.)

Fun-Crap Rating: 7 out of 10

2004 / 104 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: Some parts, like when she’s walking around her apartment jumping on things like a cat, are well done. Parts of Berry are also well done.

Really terrible part: Berry’s first-person view of a screen-filling fake CGI cat leaning over and breathing magical dust/fumes/asbestos into her face, transforming her into Catwoman! Terrible but gut-wrenchingly hilarious.

Memorable line: Sharon Stone to nearly defeated Catwoman: “Game over!” Catwoman’s response? “It’s Overtime!” Whip cracking ensues.

“Catwoman” was one of those movies that was destined to suck the chrome off a bumper from the word go. Back in the day it was going to star what’s her face, ug, does all those crappy romance movies and always has short hair? Right, Ashley Judd. But she must have been making her 10th Morgan Freeman “suspense thriller” at the time and passed the baton of Cat-Crappiness to Halle Berry, who’s been around for a long time but apparently only now after her “take off your shirt, win an Oscar!” trick do people care. (IMHO she was way, WAY hotter back in stuff like “The Flintstones” and “Passenger 57″, but I guess 10 less years will do that to a person)

Anyway, Catwoman. Right. Apparently cats have been empowering women since the dawn of time, which is movie terms is ancient Eygpt. I guess the deal here is an immortal cat named Midnight (the aforementioned dust-breathing CGI one) apparently goes around turning recently dead dowdy women into ass-kicking sex-bombs called “Catwomen” This gives them the ability to turn into cock-teases, jump on things and meow. Supposedly these powers are to somehow be used for the good of mankind… Granted it’s hard to comprehend how exactly which probably explains why the Berry Catwoman does, in fact, not a damn thing for mankind (Or the audience).

Well if you’re a Warner Exec this is a sure-fire box office smash! Now I don’t even give a rat’s ass about comparing this to the Michelle Piffier, Pzeipper. shit I can’t spell it, Catwoman in “Batman Returns”, that movie wasn’t all that great in and of itself IMHO. All I care about is if Catwoman the New Movie is a fun crap-fest ride with plenty to ridicule. And for the most part it is. For a crappy example you’ve got Halle Berry meeting, ah that’s it, his name is Benjamin Bratt (the love interest) while she’s standing outside her apartment window and since he’s a cop (from his Law & Order days) he obviously expects her to jump. She explains she’s just trying to save her cat or some such nonsense. Ha ha, how cute.

This is how most couples in real life meet you know - screw eHarmony or your friend’s friend’s brother’s sister co-worker! Nope, next time you want to meet the hunky cop of your dreams simply stand outside your apartment window until he comes along and assumes suicide (BTW Halle’s apartment was maybe 3 stories up in that shit-tacular scene. Obviously standard suicide height - just so long as you don’t land on a bush/swimming pool).

But surely the stupidest BS is the “evil corporation’s plot” They’ve developed a skin cream that makes you look good until you stop using it, at which point you turn into what looks like a hungover Lyle Lovitt who did shots of battery acid the night before. (Also note how this plot was stolen from an episode of the excellent Batman Animated Series from the early 90’s) Conveinently Halle Berry works as a dowdy graphic artist for said company complete with a cubicle and two co-workers so annoying you’ll want to pull a .38 and plug your TV. Anyway big boobs overhears the evil plot and is thus “killed” by some goons. They accomplish this by flushing her down a pipe and saying something like “Ha! No dowdy large-breasted graphic artist could survive THAT! Let’s go grab a beer!”

Of course she’s not dead - she gets breathed on by a magical CGI cat so obviously she’s now CATWOMAN! Now she’s “empowered” which I guess means becoming a bitch. She beats up a neighbor (wow) climbs up a Ferris wheel (excitement) and. damn. I think that’s about it. Wait, she snarls at a dog! (This from someone who’s demanding a bigger part in “X-Men 3″ to “develop” her character. Sheesh) Oh I haven’t mentioned yet that all the big shots of the city she lives in look fake as hell. Someone should tell the director that wowy-zooming the camera around doesn’t hide the fakey-ness rather it only makes it more obvious it’s all in a computer. It was so bad we started calling it “CGI City” about 15 minutes in. (Though not NEARLY as bad as the wowy-zooming city shots in the utterly craptacular “Dungeons & Dragons”)

The big finale of this debacle is Catwoman having to fight the head of the evil cream-making corporation - none other than a “Damn, she looks almost as old as my mom” Sharon Stone! (Off subject, what’s with “Basic Instinct 2″ being made? If I wanted to see people that age naked I’d go work in a rest home) Well get this! Sharon Stone’s used so much of the evil cream that her skin has become - and I shit you not, these are her word in the movie - “hard as marble”! This allows her to put up a pretty good fight against Catwoman but of course in the end evil Sharon falls off a building or something and her face cracks apart. It’s possible that the “face cracking” effect was accomplished by simply not filming Sharon with warm light and soft focus like they do everywhere else in the movie.

Summary: Catwoman has enough stupid lame-ass crap to keep your eyes open and plenty of groan-inducing dialog for that morbidly bad “can’t look away from a car wreck” kinda feel. It’s not as ludicrously moronically terrible as “Batman & Robin” but it’s also a good half-hour shorter, so hopefully it’ll end before you lose your interest in mocking it and take your own life. (By jumping out a 3rd story window)

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 4 per person

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) Halle stumbles, falls, or otherwise does something clumsy (before she’s Catwoman).
2) There’s a swirling CGI shot around the building Halle Berry works in.
3) Halle’s co-workers ask her about her sex life or what she’s up to.
4) You hear the words “Beau-Line” (name of evil cream).
5) Each time Halle drinks cream or eats tuna.
6) Catwoman walks like the chicks in Grand Theft Auto.
7) A close-up shot of Sharon Stone is slightly out-of-focus (like the old Star Trek chicks).
You see a brown paper coffee cup (Trust me).
9) There’s a gratuitous shot of Halle’s ass or chest.
10) The stupid hero “Midnight” cat wanders into a scene for no apparently reason.

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Guilty Parties Involved: Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Perkins and directed by the same guy who did “Son of the Mask”. Also has a lot of stars, more than you’d expect actually, for voice talent.

Fun-Crap Rating: 4 out of 10

2001 / 87 Minutes / PG
Reviewed by Ben Heckendorn

Not-so-terrible part: The hero dog is pretty cute, the premise is good.

Really terrible part: The script and plot execution sucks, Jeff Goldblum is a “human wasteland” to quote Will Ferrell/Alex Trebek, some of the effects and animatronics are pretty bad.

Memorable line: “Send in the Ninjas!”

I remember seeing the trailer for this thing years ago in a theatre and laughing pretty hard - it’s a good idea for a movie but unfortunately doesn’t live up to its potential due to the usual insipid “kid’s movie at Warner’s” script. Regardless it was watched at a Shitty Movie Night so here’s the review.

Since the dawn of time (again, as with Catwoman, ancient Egypt) cats and dogs have fought to control the destiny of Mankind. Cats are evil and hell-bent on world domination while dogs are good-natured and fight to stop them. Apparently the dogs have a pretty good “department of homeland security” set up for this, including tactical hubs in every doghouse, a tunnel system, paw-print security doors and even a World Dog Headquarters in the center of Earth governed by a Charlton Heston-voiced mastiff (I swear to God I’m not making that up) The cats however seem unorganized and just kinda prowl around and. I guess try and annoy/kidnap the dogs. (I could relate this to current world events but this movie was released pre 9-11 so that’s not really fair)

The main evil cat is a fluff-ball named, eh, I can’t remember but he talks like Stewie on Family Guy and is owned by an overtly German bedridden man who I guess owns a fake Christmas tree factory (the correlation of that just now comes to me) Evil Cat’s plan is to destroy a formula being concocted by Jeff Goldbulm which can cure all dog allergies in humans, thus making them the pet of choice for the world, dooming cats to obscurity! (Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t being allergic to cats much more common? Maybe I need to get out more.) Jeff Goldblum’s lab comes with the standard equipment of test tubes, dry ice, wires and a robotic female voice explaining the stage of each experiment so the audience can sort of tell what the hell is going on.

Enter our young puppy hero dog voiced by Spider-man himself Tobey Maguire! Through a plot convolution no director in their right mind should expect their target audience of kids to understand he’s become the new pet of Jeff Goldblum’s family, thus thrusting him into the clandestine battleground world of CATS -VS- DOGS! (I can’t believe I just used the word “clandestine”) Granted, it could be worse - it could be the clandestine battleground world of “ECKS -VS- SEVER”, but I digress. Naturally we get the usual set-up of the father to busy for his son (don’t worry, this doesn’t happen while a cat spies on them hidden in a cradle near a silver spoon) and the son rejecting his “new dog” because he still misses the old one. Lines from the kid like “Can YOU talk?” and, upon thinking the dog is dead “You can’t die, you’re my best friend!” might work in a different movie but feel embarrassing and forced in something like this.

The main reason the plot sucks is because every “evil cat plan” revolves around getting into Goldblum’s basement workshop and stealing the formula. This is as limiting as it sounds and makes for a monotonous bore-a-thon. Example: “Send in the Ninjas!” the evil cat commands. Next thing we know we’re in Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Cat Edition as some badly rendered low-rent feline Sam Fisher wanna-be’s (complete with glowing green eyepieces) sneak into Goldblum’s house and fight the Tobey Maguire hero dog. “Hilarity” ensues and he drives them away.

“Send in the Russian” snarls the evil cat, evoking an almost identical line that John Travolta will say a few years later in the also-not-so-good Punisher. Oh boy here comes a cute kitten! Purr.purr.. Wait, he’s got a Vodka-swilling gruff-as-nails Russian accent! Maybe HE can break into Goldblum’s basement with the plastic explosives he smuggled into the house via a fur ball! Oh, why does he need explosives you ask? Well I forgot to mention the basement has a vault-like door, obviously because Goldblum expects everyone to try and steal his formula.

And so on and so on. Eventually the evil cat just kidnaps the Goldblum family (thus negating all the wasted time from the previous plans) and Tobey-Dog, who by now is friends with their son, simply caves in and delivers the formula to the cats. This ensures the end-of-act-2 fight that every movie requires (”You’ve betrayed dogs everywhere and doomed mankind!” “I can’t keep pretending to be something I’m not” yada yada bullshit etc) and sets up the final battle in the fake Christmas tree factory.

Summary: This movie is mildly entertaining on a bad level but is mostly disappointing because had they not pulled any punches it could have been a hilariously dark classic like Gremlins and STILL attracted the kids. Sadly, for every funny dark moment (like the Russian cat tied to a chair under a 300 watt light bulb and being questioned) there’s 10 poop/fart jokes. However “Cats & Dogs” is light-years better than the rancid moves-as-fast-as-a-painting turd pile that was “Garfield: The Movie”. (Which unfortunately soiled a previous Shitty Movie Night and was too worthless to review) Oh well. Maybe if I ever get a chance to do my “Dogs Playing Poker” movie I can show them how it’s done!

Suggested Number of Beers for watching film: 5 per person

Drinking game: Take a drink every time:

1) A collar opens up and reveals a blinking blue LED.
2) The Tobey Maguire dog is referred to as “The Kid”.
3) Jeff Goldblum emerges from the basement wearing a wacky outfit.
4) The Joe Pantoliano dog is seen in his glass cylinder “command center”.
5) The hefty German maid says something stupid to Evil Cat.
6) Stupid “cartoon eyes” are pasted onto an otherwise normal shot of a real animal.
7) The crappy animatronic version of the Joe Pantoliano dog makes you wonder how the Jim Henson Creature shop stays in business.
The Alec Baldwin (yes, Alec Baldwin) dog opens the command module in his doghouse (they must have been proud of that prop).
9) The evil cat is shown wearing a stupid outfit (made by the hefty German maid).
10) Every time a dog walks through the “door” in the wooden fence.

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