Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (3D)

Stars: Chris O'Donnell. Voices: Bette Midler, James Marsden, Nick Nolte, Christina Applegate, Roger Moore, Neil Patrick Harris, Wallace Shawn, Michael Clarke Duncan, Joe Pantoliano, Katt Williams, Sean Hayes

Director: Brad Peyton

A clunky attempt to turn the Cats & Dogs franchise into a James Bone - sorry, Bond - movie, complete with 007-style credits and Shirley Bassey singing on the soundtrack.

It's a nice conceit, but the idea never really works, putting too much reliance on slightly shoddy special effects, as Kitty Galore (alias Iwanna Clawyu), now a furless fiend voiced by Midler and looking like one of those old rubber chickens, plans to send all dogdom raving mad via a satellite-controlled device.

Out to stop her are Diggs (Marsden), a disgraced police dog, Butch (Nolte), a veteran canine agent, and Catherine (Applegate), a feline spy for MEOWS - mousers enforcing our world safety - as cats and dogs uneasily team up.

A few nice bits - a den of stoned cats 'hopped up on catnip', and a Goldfinger moment when Kitty informs a captured Catherine that 'I don't want you to swim. I want you to drown'- are only small compensation for the painfully contrived nature of the rest.

The runtime includes a gloriously funny but far too short 3-minute Wile E Coyote/Road Runner cartoon, also in 3D, called Coyote Falls.

David Quinlan

USA 2010. UK Distributor: Warner Brothers. Colour.
82 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: U.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 31 Jul 2010