Column: 'Chihuahua' doesn't think

By Dan Moore
Oct. 6, 2008

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"Beverly Hills Chihuahua" is what it is, and on some level that is enough. Nobody walked into this, the No. 1 movie in America - featuring George Lopez and Drew Barrymore as talking Chihuahuas in love - and expected anything other than what they got. But at some point being what it is becomes the problem. It's fine if you want to make a light children's movie, but at some point somebody's got to, well, think of the children. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" doesn't really think of anything.

As the story begins, Chloe, our titular Chihuahua, spends her days being carried around in designer handbags and dishing with her girlfriends (and a gay pug) and living a life of spoiled, vapid luxury. One day, while her owner's scatterbrained niece, Rachel, is watching her, she's dog-napped by some angry-looking villains and sent to the dogfights in Mexico. What follows is a chase through the desert and some deserted ruins, during which Chloe and Rachel learn valuable lessons about themselves and others.

It's standard stuff, and some of it's done pretty well; for a kid's "My First Adventure" film it's aware of the breadth of its adventuring, using cityscapes, ancient ruins, and desert highways to their own particular advantages instead of treating them all like one big green screen. The camerawork is remarkably accomplished, sometimes to the point of self-parody. It is something to cut to a reacting character at the right moment, but it is something else to cut to a reacting dog.

And that's the problem with this movie: At some point the humans, and the dogs, must open their mouths. When that happens, all the tone and nuance of the shots is replaced by something worse than the expected dog puns. There's George Lopez making vaguely sexual come-ons to a dog, and there's another dog giving the prototypical I-was-a-cop-gone-wrong speech, dead partner and all, to yet another dog.

Like the Greek gods, who complained about mundane things in spite of their supernatural powers, these dogs are way too human for comfort. There's a severe over-reliance on CG mouth moving, making things much less subtle than, say, "Homeward Bound," but worst of all the dogs retain their emotionless, un-reactive eyes. Emotional response shots are defused by the fact that we can't tell the dogs are listening to each other. Sometimes it seems that the film is cutting to dog mannequins. It's impossible to come out of this movie without being more appreciative of the expressive animated dogs Disney has trotted out in the past.

So what it comes down to is this: Will children enjoy this movie? Probably. There's a more conventionally animated rat and his iguana partner around for comic relief, and there's just enough action to avoid frightening anybody. The usual lessons - One must trust oneself! One must understand one's heritage! - are learned in a bolted-on finale, and everybody falls in love. But is this mess, at turns cloying and creepy, stupid and stilted, the best Disney can do?

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Column: 'Chihuahua' doesn't think

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