Parents' Guide to A Dog's Way Home

Cameron is like Nicholas Sparks, but for pet stories; his crowd-pleasing, tearjerking work focuses on the powerful love between humans and their dogs. And while dog-loving families will be happy to note that, unlike in A Dog's Purpose, there's no death scene involving the central canine in A Dog's Way Home, there definitely is an emotional, intense story arc that's likely to leave them in tears. Howard does a fine job voicing the incredibly loving, determined, and long-suffering Bella, who wants nothing more than to play with Lucas and comfort "Mom" and her veteran friends. Bella's relationship with the doting Lucas (Hauer-King is sweetly charming) is as cute as you'd expect, especially the twee way he offers her a "tiny piece of cheese" every night before bed.

But the movie's second half, which deals with the series of sad to seriously upsetting obstacles Bella faces once she's separated from Lucas, is overlong. The scenes Bella spends as an adoptive mother to an orphaned baby cougar she calls "Big Kitten" feel like they're part of one of those "unlikely animal friends" stories, but the cougar looks so overtly computer-generated that the effect can be off-putting. And when Bella ends up with homeless Axel (Edward James Olmos), things get downright depressing. The theme of veterans suffering from mental illness works in the context of service dogs, but Axel's situation seems a bit heavy for what's otherwise clearly a family-targeted film. There's a brief moment of happiness when Bella temporarily lives with a kind married couple (Barry Watson and Motell Gyn Foster) who want to adopt her. She's tempted, but her heart belongs at home, with Lucas.