Pets United (2020)
Falling asleep while watching Pets United is inevitable. The animation is cheap. The characters ugly. You want to close your eyes to avoid them. The dull story ensures they'll stay closed.
In Robocity, stray dog Roger (Patrick Roche) takes care of other street animals by stealing food. When the city’s mayor (Eddie Marsan) suddenly announces that anyone with emotions is no longer welcome in his mechanical Utopia, everyone leaves. Only a few animals and Roger’s friends now remain to take down the mayor and his army of robots.
Written, directed, and produced by Reinhard Kloos, this is as bad as it sounds. I get that a giant one-eyed mechanical spider is scary but damn. No one fought back? No one stayed behind? Within an hour, the streets are squeaky-clean and much easier to animate. There are only three humans in the entire film. The robot designs are fine but uninspired. The animals? Horrific. Their fur looks all wrong, their proportions twisted into nightmarish shapes and their movements make them feel even more artificial. The whole thing feels rushed.
These flaws would've been difficult to overcome but good writing could’ve done it. Hoodwinked looks like trash but it sure is funny. In this case, the writing matches the visuals. Joining Roger is Belle (Natalie Dormer, whose character was obviously supposed to be called "Fame" based on the decorations in her apartment), an arachnophobic Siamese cat. When she stands up to the giant mechanical spider, it’s supposed to indicate she’s overcome her fear… but does it? Being afraid of an arachnid big enough to smash cars like tubes of toothpaste is rational. Jumping towards it doesn’t make you brave… it makes you dead. Unless the script is working in your favor, of course. This movie’s preferred way of getting its heroes out of a jam isn’t to foreshadow the events well, it isn’t even a Deus Ex Machina; it’s to cut away and have the problem resolve itself off-screen.
The dialogue is filled with gems like “You’re no son of mine. You’re the spawn of the devil!” And “I wanted to create the perfect city by destroying nature.” A hero utters that second one. Yikes. I won't quote the trio of rapping predators (who have inexplicably escaped the zoo) but I will point out a typo in the signage on a building. Most of the stores are either lame puns or “Robocity BLANK”. I’m certain “Rodoutique” was supposed to be “Roboutique” but that’s what you get when a team of hacks sends their lousy movie to be animated in China. Even if the dialogue had been good, it wouldn’t have stood a chance. The voice actors are all bland and they know it. This is why their characters are “spiced up” by a buffet of dodgy accents.
I can't imagine anyone in their right mind - except perhaps the most bored of children - not turning off Pets United before the end. I knew I had made a horrible mistake by choosing it minutes in. (September 23, 2020)