Underdog

Underdog is an affable, sporadically entertaining piece of work that’s ultimately undone by its emphasis on relentlessly silly elements, although – admittedly – there’s certainly no denying the effectiveness of Peter Dinklage’s expectedly compelling performance. Jason Lee provides the voice of the title character, a bomb-sniffing beagle who’s fired for incompetence and subsequently dognapped by the villainous Dr. Simon Barsinister (Dinklage) and his moronic sidekick Cad (Patrick Warburton). After a daring escape, Underdog finds himself saddled with a number of superpowers – though it’s not until an ex-cop (James Belushi’s Dan) takes him in that Underdog first begins to discover his new abilities. Screenwriters Adam Rifkin, Joe Piscatella, and Craig A. Williams, working, obviously, from the long-running ’60s television show, essentially offer up a standard superhero origin story, as the bulk of the movie follows Underdog’s efforts to get a handle on his powers and eventually use them to take down the demented Barsinister. And while it’s all very cute and even entertaining for a while, there does reach a point at which director Frederik Du Chau’s decision to stress overtly puerile elements becomes increasingly problematic – ensuring that although kids will undoubtedly get a kick out of the slapstick-heavy third act, older viewers will find themselves searching for something (anything) of note worth embracing.

** out of ****