Life Is Ruff (2005)

This is a made for television Disney movie and it shows. The plot is drivel and the acting is incredibly poor. The lead character proves to be both unrealistic and annoying right from the beginning and it even seems that the others in the cast find him equally irritating so have little sympathy.

There is a plot, involving comics, selfishness, dog training and friendship, but all in all it is tedious and difficult to find anything to celebrate.

With a Disney television film you go in expecting little and never really rise beyond that low bar. Watch at your peril.

Adult score: 1/5
Child score: 4/5 Despite the plot being weak, it's got plenty of dogs!

The Boy, the Dog and the Clown (2019)

This is a strange film that would never have gained any traction anywhere, and yet there's nothing to dislike about it. The boy plays an odd character who fails to engage with anyone and that includes the viewer. It's hard to empathise with his plight and at times that makes you want to just give him a slap in the face to buck up his ideas. For some reason this seems to give him the authority to talk to strangers at the beach and who better to spend time with than a tattered old clown and his dog. On any day an adult would tell him to steer clear and even the most disobedient of children would struggle to think spending time with the clown was a good idea.

The mother gets sucked in and when the family go on a camping trip, with the clown and dog as companions, we're are asking the same questions, her friends are - Who is this guy? Through a series of ridiculous moments we are led to a contrivance involving a mass of butterflies, redemption, a new life, new beginnings and a new confidence.

It's all perfectly harmless, and the director clearly felt the need to stretch things out with an overlong butterfly eye-opener scene, but you'd have to go a long way not to miss the message being hammered home.

Adult score: 2/5
Child score: 4/5 it had regular cameos from the dog!

Soul Surfer (2011)

I knew this story, but didn't realise there was the devout theme running so deeply within. The actual incident is played down, and in fact the reaction of Hamilton is all played in a low key. There is a hint of feeling sorry for herself but Hamilton never really loses touch with her roots in surfing, something which would be hard to do when you live on Hawaii and have a view from your bedroom of the crashing waves.

The story is a typical sports recovery/redemption tale, low-level villains within the piece and the challenges she faced but that's okay. We are even given a sports montage as she re-engages and runs through a training regime to turn things around for the national championships.

The original documentary footage at the end adds a nice sheen of authenticity and all in all it is hard not to respect Hamilton's achievement since the accident.

Adult score: 3/5
Child score: 4/5 because you didn't see much of the dog!

Onward (2020)

The latest effort from Pixar focuses on the relationship between two sons and their dead father. They attempt to complete a quest to ultimately spend one more day with their father but in doing so our protagonist learns that he didn't need the time because he'd had his older brother all along.

There are some clever ideas and the typical couple of set pieces with some nice characters but it falls a long way short of the likes of Inside Out and Toy Story. The lead characters are generally hard to empathise with, despite it being targeted at fathers and sons, but there were plenty of tropes to initiate emotions in the closing scenes.

No doubt kids will enjoy it, particularly the older brother and his wacky ways, and the adults who played Dungeons & Dragons will recognise a few nods, but ultimately this falls short.

Adult score: 3/5
Child score: 5/5

Sox (2013)

With the exception of the incompetent, mostly excessive, occasionally lewd bad guys, this film is unmemorable. The dog doesn’t even properly talk!

Adult score: 1/5

Child score: 4/5

Bound By Movement (2019)

An interesting film about some Parkour professionals touring the US, exploring what they get up to, their relationships, their accidents and why they do what they do. They go to some interesting places and get up to some entertaining hi-jinks but beyond that there isn’t too much to take away from this film. Parkour is a great athletic, energetic endeavor that kids and adults alike can harmlessly enjoy but this film is more focused on a pro just having fun with like-minded people. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with that it doesn’t add up to any sort of repeat viewing and the lack of learning anything else from the film leaves you feeling a little empty at the end.

Adult score: 3/5

Child score: 4/5

Christmas Break-In (2018)

Hmmm, there’s a whole lot of contrivances in this one and that’s meant in the context of most children’s films requiring absurd contrivances. 

The parents are dodgy and that’s ignoring the fact that these two look so unsuitable as a couple, and to add to that they are plain irresponsible. The older brother is dodgy and quite what ‘Drone Club’ is expected to achieve is absurd and only seems to exist so that it can be used as a later plot device. Said plot device demonstrates some poorly rendered CGI and leads to perhaps the only moment of levity in the film when, in the outtakes, there are numerous efforts to correctly land the snowboard. And above all that is that the main character is an annoying girl who dreams of being a rock guitar goddess but by the end you really hope she fails. 

Throughout the film you are left wondering who has the compromising photos of Danny Glover because it makes no sense why he would turn up to such a demeaning gig. He may be best known for Lethal Weapon and those days are long behind him but even Mel Gibson got better scripts after his public infractions, so Glover needs to fire his agent. 

And finally, the bad guys. They have read the manual on bad guys in kids films and rewrote it in spectacular fashion achieving a mark of Poor – Must try harder, in every category.

Adult score: 1/5

Child score: 4/5