Film Reviews

Snow Dogs

• Rating:
• Director: Brian Levant
• Starring: Cuba Gooding Jr.
• Details: US / 99 minutes / (G)

Cuba Gooding Jr plays Miami dentist, Theodore Brooks, who discovers that he's been adopted and his real parents are Alaskan dog sled racers. After his biological mother dies, she leaves her son a cabin and a team of huskies in a bid to make up for her treatment of poor little Theodore all those years ago. Realizing that he must travel north in order to find out more about himself, Theodore goes to Alaska to claim his inheritance and find his real father, a grizzly old timer called Thunder Jack (James Coburn, who incidentally bears zip physical resemblance to Gooding Jr).
While there's no doubting the demographic of Disney's Snow Dogs, even the youngest of viewers will probably find the sight of Cuba Gooding Jr falling over in the snow (again) a trifle repetitive by the end of the film. The director, Brian Levant, shows no desire to expand on the theme or indeed gags that have been recycled countless times already, with the result that there's no bounce or joy to the film. To be fair, Gooding Jr does his best with the very limited material, but it's not enough, as Snow Dogs suffers from an alarming lack of imagination and verve.

Review by Garreth Murphy