Marmaduke (2022)

"I can see why this film was stuck in production hell. I don't know why it's doing well on Netfilx, or so we told. Who knows, through? Netfilx is full of itself when it comes to animation and how it's treating its shows and movies and whatnot right now. I used to praise it, but now I'm kind of, like, very concerned about the state of animation with Netfilx. It sounds like they really crossed their skis, and hopefully Marmaduke will not become the norm for them, because if so, then, like... Abandon ship."

- Saberspark

Marmaduke is an American-Canadian-Hong Kong-South Korean computer-animated movie released on Netflix in 2022, based on the daily comic strip of the same name, and is the second movie adaptation of Marmaduke after the 2010 live-action film, also based on the comic of the same name.

Plot
Messy and mischievous Marmaduke has a big heart but can't stay out of trouble! Does he have what it takes to shine in the swanky dog show world?

Why It Should Stay Locked Up In Its Room Until It Learns Its Lesson

 * 1) The idea of bringing Marmaduke back as an animated film wasn't completely necessary for starters, because the infamous 2010 live-action film has already terribly tainted its legacy. Unlike many animated revivals of franchises that had animated cartoon-based live-action movies, which, good or bad, still tried to be better than previous bad live-action movies, this film however deviates, only for it to be even worse than the live-action film.
 * 2) *And while an animated revival of Marmaduke isn't the worst of the ideas, doing it as a cheap kids' flick isn't great, as fans of the comic preferred a series or at best; a better continuation of the live-action film.
 * 3) Bland and clichéd writing that is nothing more but a typical film of a dog adventure in a regular city, to the point that it becomes very predictable and that the viewer already knows that there will be two choices: Marmaduke will forever remain lazy or will eventually learn to be useful. It will obviously be the latter.
 * 4) This film has no connection with the source material, unlike the previous film, which although its knowledge is also poor, is much better than this film.
 * 5) Indescribably unfunny and juvenile attempts at humor that mostly consist of dog puns and even toilet humor like in the infamous scene where Marmaduke defecates in the award cup, followed with a fart that takes up the whole field and evacuates everyone.
 * 6) Almost all the characters are just annoying, bland, or downright uninteresting like Marmaduke himself who has been flanderized from a kind-hearted, clumsy, and always a helpful dog into a lazy, selfish, unruly, kind of dumb, and an overly accident-prone dog with a huge fixation on food, although he is still likable.
 * 7) * The Winslow family is the stereotypical cartoon family.
 * 8) * Shantelle is the main character's love interest.
 * 9) * The dog champions are kind of bland and they barely do anything in the entire film, as well as being a stereotype of their countries, an example is a Mexican Chihuahua who is obsessed with tacos
 * 10) * Zeus, while he can be somewhat amusing and tolerable as the main antagonist, he isn't the most intimidating and his motives to make Marmaduke can get bland since he's basically a selfish villain. As he gaslights and frames Marmaduke during his performance, making him eat a huge amount of food to make him fat and sliding him on the shampoo to energetically injure his instructor, he then becomes fallible because of his underhanded plans that fail. Plus, he barely has any screen time
 * 11) Terrible CGI animation that is on par with the same quality of animation as Norm of the North and Pets United. Not to mention, it looks more like a direct-to-video DVD film from the mid-2000s due to the character animation, as they move in a somewhat fast way alongside some layer issues and physics of falling objects who seems like it's floating and this is noticeable in the scene of Mr. Winslow grilling some sausages with some of them look like it's in the top of the fire.
 * 12) * The visual effects look very cheap with the green smoke effect used in the scene where Marmaduke's fart seems far too thick to be a fart. It is also lazily reused for burps and recolored for car smog.
 * 13) Ugly and uncanny character designs that don't look like their original counterparts, especially with Marmaduke that feels like a bootleg Scooby-Doo from Be Cool, Scooby-Doo (Ironically enough, he was called Scooby Poo in one scene). Speaking of Marmaduke, this is also misleading since in the promotional poster he has orange fur just like he had in the comics. By the way, the human characters look like The Addams Family (2019) rejects, with their limbs look like uncooked pasta as well as Dottie (the mother) having abnormally thick hips and legs.
 * 14) Lots of crappy and childish dialogue, like:
 * 15) *"Ladies and gentlemen, one of the seven wonders of the world: Marmaduke!"
 * 16) *"Here comes EL STINKO!"
 * 17) *"Some dogs are must to be champions, others to be ... dogs."
 * 18) *"See ya later Zoser."
 * 19) Most of the voice acting ranges from passable to downright irritating, bland or hollow. Pete Davidson, while funny, is a huge miscast for Marmaduke since there is no striking performance that fits his character.
 * 20) * Another talented voice actor, Brian Hull, voices Guy; who happens to give off a very unremarkable voice performance despite Brian's true talents.
 * 21) The 2D animation used in the intro and ending credits are laughably choppy and lazy (it looks like if Nostalgia Critic's 2D animations in his videos had a little more movement), and it doesn't help either that it was animated by the Disney veteran Phil Nibbelink.
 * 22) * An prime example of this is the segue to the ending credits, where after Marmaduke gets a smooch from Shantelle, there is an assortment of floaty hearts that literally blocks most of the screen. It's as if the screenplay editors just knew that anyone, including kids, would be terrified at a closeup of Marmaduke's eyes.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Some of the characters are likable like King Tut (Carlos), Guy Hilton, and even Marmaduke, despite him being flanderized.
 * 2) * As discussed at WIS#5, Zeus is a tolerable villain.
 * 3) The soundtrack can be very fun to listen to, especially Marmaduke's rap song in the end credits.
 * 4) The competition scenes were interesting and can be considered the only enjoyable scene throughout the movie.
 * 5) J.K. Simmons is the best voice actor in the entire movie, he did his best to give Zeus's voice some life to his character with what he had to work with. His line delivery can be really funny to listen to at times. While Pete davidson is of course miscasted as Marmaduke, his voice for marmaduke comes off as funny
 * 6) While the humor is beyond unfunny and cringeworthy, it has its funny moments here and there (this often happens unintentionally).
 * 7) * Zeus's snarky nature does provide some funny moments here and there.
 * 8) The idea of an animated Marmaduke movie does sound good on paper if they handled the concept a lot better.

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 0% based on 10 reviews, making it one of the rare animated films to hold a 0% rating on the site. Aurora Amidon of Paste Magazine criticized the formulaic and predictable plot, but praised the voice acting of Davidson, Simmons, and Koechner.

Videos
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