 | ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. |
 | OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
Karate Dog
- Review Date: August 24, 2006
- PG
- Genre: Family and Kids
- 2006
Common Sense Media says
Too rough for any kid who'd find this dog funny.
Parents say
Kids say
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that this TV movie has a few scenes of actual, people-on-people violence, including the beginning, when Karate Dog's master is killed by masked assassins, and one scene in which Karate Dog is wrestled away to the pound by a gratuitous animal control officer. When Karate Dog is fighting, the scenes look more like a video game than anything else and are less frightening -- but no less violent. There's also mild sexual innuendo, mostly among the dogs, of a sort that might be difficult to explain to young kids.
What's the story?
When Karate Dog's master (Pat Morita) is killed, the wise-cracking dog – whose real name is Cho-Cho (voiced by Chevy Chase) -- must team up with a geeky cop (Simon Rex) to solve the crime. The killer is a former student of Karate Dog's master who's now out to use a secret formula to sell eternal youth. Karate Dog will also help his new friend get the girl (Jaime Pressly) after the obligatory Cyrano de Bergerac scene. Of course, no one besides the cop knows the dog can talk.
Is it any good?
This is The Karate Kid meets Turner and Hooch, with a dash of James Bond -- and it doesn't even come close to any of them. Action scenes lifted from Mission: Impossible, The Matrix, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are shoehorned into the plot, which otherwise resembles nothing so much as an old Charlie's Angels episode. Any kid old enough to have seen the films and get the joke is too old to appreciate it.
Karate Dog switches from one genre to the next with lightning speed and a blatant disregard for its limp storyline. The talents of Chevy Chase and John Voight are wasted. Do yourself a favor and don't invest your family's movie time in Karate Dog.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about Karate Dog's computer-generated martial arts prowess and how that's created, or how a talented comedian like Chevy Chase ends up in a movie like this (Do you think it's all about the money? Do you think he was more inclined to do it because you only hear his voice? Could someone have made a funny movie out of this idea?) They can also discuss how much money must have been spent on the action sequences rather than on the script, a skewed set of values that really shows in this case.
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AGE
FUnny
This is funny. Drugs are the theme of the movie and deemed bad with side affects. Just cartoon violence not much unless you are squemish. people and dogss die from the drug. Diversity is a theme of most stuff so get used to it.
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AGE
i`m so freakin exited[sarcasm]
csm was right the dog doing karate looked more like a video game than a movie
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| Topics: | sports and martial arts |
| Studio: | Universal Pictures |
| Director: | Bob Clark |
| Cast: | Chevy Chase, Jaime Pressly, Jon Voight |
| Genre: | Family and Kids |
| Run time: | 84 minutes |
| Theatrical release date: | August 22, 2006 |
| DVD release date: | August 22, 2006 |
| MPAA rating: | PG |
| MPAA explanation: | martial arts action/violence and some suggestive content |
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