In the next few weeks, I’ll be appearing as a guest on Matt’s Direct to Video Connoisseur podcast discussing this Christmas movie starring Dolph Lundgren. In the past, we have discussed Santa’s Summer House, starring Action Movie Icons like Don “The Dragon” Wilson and Cynthia Rothrock, as well as the Dolph Lundgren flick Altitude. This seemed like a perfect film to talk about since Dolph plays the villain in the flick, and it was made by Altitude’s director, Alex Merkin. In fact, the film is filled with a who’s who of DTV talent (most of which are the voices of the dogs) like Danny Trejo, Malcolm McDowell, Keith David, and Eric Roberts. Speaking of Roberts, this isn’t quite as bad as the Roberts-starring A Talking Cat, but man, it comes close.
We discussed the film at great length, so look for the episode when it drops. I’ll be sure to post a link here so you guys can check it out. Until then, here’s a brief review to tide you over.
Christmas movies are a genre unto themselves now. With Hallmark Channel and Freeform playing non-stop Christmas movies, the market is oversaturated already, but with the advent of streaming, the need for more Christmas-related content is growing. That’s how movies like Pups Alone get made.
I swear there are Christmas movie title generators at streaming services where they cut and paste Christmas related titles until they find one that seems halfway doable. Such is the case with Pups Alone. As you can tell by the title, it’s Home Alone, but with pups. This isn’t the worst idea in the world for a kids Christmas movie, but as bad as you might expect it to be, it’s even worse than you could imagine. You know you’re in trouble right away when the pups are full grown dogs, and not the little pups alluded to in the title.
As a father, I sat through many of the Disney Air Bud spin-off “Buddies” movies. Of that franchise, Super Buddies was by far the worst. Since it was my daughter’s favorite, we had to watch it over and over again. I am not lying when I say I have seen that movie as many times as Star Wars. As bad as Super Buddies was, Pups Alone is even worse. It makes Super Buddies look like Old Yeller by comparison.
Robert (Tyler Hollinger), the inventor of a talking dog collar, moves into a gated community filled with other inventors who work as a sort of think tank for a pet toy conglomerate, owned by CEO Bill (Roberts). While on a skiing trip, he leaves his dog Charlie (the voice of Jerry O’Connell) home alone. Meanwhile, the evil Victor Von Manure (Dolph) plans to steal the Robert’s plans for the dog collar, so he hires two nitwits to break into the house. Since the community is full of inventors, the neighbors’ dogs rig their master’s inventions up to become anti-theft devices. This leads into the so-close-to-Home-Alone-there-might-be-a-lawsuit-brewing hijinks.
I can’t imagine anyone under the age of five enjoying this. Even as a fan of Dolph, Trejo, Roberts, McDowell, and company, this was 107 minutes of pure pain. Scenes go on forever without laughs, set-ups, or payoffs. Some end abruptly. They try to compensate for the choppy narrative by using animated, pop-up book style vignettes in between the scenes, but it rarely works. The premise is a sound one, but it takes forever to get to the talking dog vs. robbers shit as the first half is mercilessly weighted down with useless exposition, overlong and unfunny comedy scenes, and pointless subplots that go nowhere.
The only scene worth a damn is when Dolph (woefully miscast in the kind of role Richard Kind or Jon Lovitz would play) kisses Eric Roberts’ ass at a dinner party. The part where Roberts looks straight at the camera and says, “Let’s get drunk!” is the only laugh-out-loud moment in the entire thing. I don’t know if he was talking to the cast and crew and they accidentally put it in the movie, or if it was in the script, but you might want to follow his advice as it’s the only way you’ll be able to survive this one in a single viewing.
Woof.
AKA: Pups Alone: A Christmas Peril.
I always hated Old Yeller myself.
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