Mark Reviews Movies: MARMADUKE (2022)

Marmaduke, Netflix

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 6, 2022

A talking Marmaduke isn't the best idea, to say the least. What's the point? As we learned from the previous attempt to adapt Brad Anderson's comic strip about a troublesome Great Dane, there's not much the dog can add to the conversation about how much misfortune and how many problems he can cause. Marmaduke once again talks in this computer-animated Marmaduke, and the pointlessness of that concept is probably the least of this movie's issues.

Here, Marmaduke is voiced by Pete Davidson, who's fine as the sort-of dopey but generally sincere canine. In case one doesn't know the character, the dog is constantly getting into trouble because he's hungry, playful, good with people, and sleepy, but since he's a very big dog, all of his normal and energetic behaviors have big, disrupting consequences. There wasn't much to Anderson's comic, which is a point that has been made by lots of people who care about the medium in some form, but those are the basics.

If one can get past the quick and cheap animation in director Mark Dippé's adaptation, well, you are far more forgiving of clearly rushed work, for one thing, and should be credited for such unnecessary kindness. The title dog, with its jagged angles and stretched-out features, looks basically like a dog, although nothing like weighty and solid form of the comic strips, let alone an actual Great Dane.

The humans are much worse for wear, coming across like meatier stick figures, with their twig-thin limbs and assorted, bulky masses of torsos and hips. The movement is shaky, as if stray frames are missing, so the general aesthetic philosophy on display seems to be to get it done yesterday, because the familiar name attached to the project is enough of a selling point.

Anyway, the other thing one might concede, if one can look past how the movie looks and moves, is that the opening scene at least allows Marmaduke to do what he does. His owners, the Wilson family, are having a big party in their backyard, and because the dog got into trouble, he's locked up in an upstairs room. Marmaduke tries to hold back his desperate instincts to play and eat, but a bee gets in his ear, causing him to burst out the window and dive into the swimming pool, drenching the partiers and flooding the house. It's not particularly clever or funny, but the scene is, at least, basically what we expect from the character and any material surrounding him.

The rest of the story, from screenwriter Byron Kavanagh, goes against even that. After Marmaduke's dive becomes an online sensation, a famous dog trainer named Guy (voice of Brian Hull) decides to make it his mission to prove that he can transform the most famously badly behaved dog into a proper pooch. The plot revolves around Marmaduke's attempts to win on the dog competition circuit, but obviously, some accidents get in the way and make him consider removing himself from the family to save them the embarrassment.

If a talking Marmaduke is pointless, a well-behaved one is counter to the whole point of the character, so there's a long stretch in which our canine protagonist is a comedic dead end. The rest of the characters possess even less potential, from the humans—bland family patriarch Phil (voice of David Koechner), his blander wife Dottie (voice of Julie Nathanson), their cowboy-obsessed son Billy (voice of Terri Douglas), and teenage daughter Barbara (voice of Erin Fitzgerald)—to the animals—main competition Zeus (voice of J.K. Simmons) and other dogs representing discomforting ethnic stereotypes (a taco-loving Chihuahua and a mystical pup from China).

In terms of the bigger gags after this development, Marmaduke stuffing himself with food before a competition leads to a predictable joke on—and out of—the backend. Meanwhile, the slapstick of a slippery obstacle course is only less obvious and groan-worthy than the inevitable scene in which Marmaduke and the family show off their dance moves (If the animation is eerie and awkward in everyday movement, just imagine this part). On the other side of that, if a talking and well-behaved Marmaduke feels wrong, his moments of existential depression are even stranger and less in line with the character's foundation and the movie's own attempts to keep things cheery.

Marmaduke is a sloppy mess—and not in the theoretically charming way of its central character. It's unappealing on a visual level, confused on a narrative one, and absent in terms of humor.

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