Beverly Hills Chihuahua

I have seen a lot of bad movies this year and will no doubt see a lot more, but the biggest surprise I've experienced as a critic in 2008 is that movies Beverly Hills Chihuahua isn't one of them. Thanks to various other commitments – getting my taxes done, washing my hair – the first opportunity I had to screen it was on opening day with a public audience, and that proved to be a blessing in disguise, because it reminded me that there are some movies made that are not in fact designed to appeal to folks like me. And while that certainly doesn't excuse its many shortcomings, not the least of which its absence of monsters, superheroes or pneumatically-engineered babes, the bottom line is that at absolute worst Beverly Hills Chihuahua is inoffensive family fun.

Drew Barrymore provides the voice for Chloe, a pampered Chihuahua who gets lost in Mexico when her temporary caretaker Rachel (Piper Perabo) decides to head south of the border for a weekend getaway with her girlfriends. Before Rachel can find her, Chloe gets kidnapped and thrown into a kennel where she is scheduled to fight a Doberman named El Diablo (Edward James Olmos). Thankfully, another dog named Delgado (Andy Garcia) intervenes, but not before Diablo's owner Vasquez (Jose Maria Yapzik) notices her diamond-studded collar. Slowly, Chloe and Delgado begin to make their way out of Mexico and back to her home in Beverly Hills, with Rachel frantically trying to track her whereabouts even as Vasquez hunts her down in order to steal her million-dollar collar.



If you have ever wondered what a dog looks like in a porkpie hat, then that's a sure sign this is the film for you. (It's also a sign you may need professional help.) In fact, imagining absurd scenarios is not only an essential part of Beverly Hills Chihuahua's origins, it's an inevitable part of the viewing process for adults, because they will immediately transpose all of their memories of movies about Mexico onto what happens with Chloe once she heads south of the border. Hmmm – Chloe finds herself battling for her life in a dogfight? We've entered Amores Perros. She gets caught up in a Day of the Dead celebration? Here comes Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Oh, she's lost in the Mexican desert without a clue where to go? Welcome to Babel, princess.

Admittedly, the thought of Chloe hooking up with an illegal nanny, getting into a massive car accident and transforming into a blind gunman is probably a little too dark for the film's intended audience. But for the rest of us, it's an intriguing alternate take on Chloe's Mexican vacation, especially since that imagination is the only real creativity that has been used in the film by the time she battles for her life in a Mayan temple that looks like a redressed set from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Again, however, I recognize that I'm probably being too hard on a movie whose purpose is literally to put little dogs in humiliating costumes and have them act out human scenarios for treats that await them off camera. Unlike true cinematic abominations like the Movie movies (Disaster, Date, Epic, etc.), writers Analisa LaBianco and Jeffrey Bushell seem at least to be aware that they're mining the dregs of "human" movies for their compendium of clichés before they embrace them; including a storyline where bored lapdog Chloe is seduced by her passionate gardener Papi (George Lopez) is funny enough, but they go for broke featuring a dog with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, and much of it almost works because the rest of the movies is equally if not more ridiculous.



Ultimately, I can think of only one intentional joke that I laughed at, which involves a mountain lion doing a double take (the first in animal history, if I'm not mistaken) at the sight of a growling army of Chihuahuas. But I found myself surprisingly amused by much of the rest of it, mostly because it's hard to believe that someone actually spent time coming up with the idea for a certain joke or plotline or, yes, a dog with undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. ("Talk to the paw" – seriously?) Really, the only problem with the film is that every time you think it's over, something else happens, which suggests that a kitchen-sink approach to plotting was in fact the only way that the filmmakers could stretch their idea to feature length. So unless you have matching porkpie hats for yourself and your favorite furry friend, get your taxes done, wash your hair, and get ready for the next film featuring monsters, superheroes or pneumatically-engineered babes. Because Beverly Hills Chihuahua is by no means a good movie, but as plain-old bad ones go, it's as generic and inoffensive as they come.