Parents' Guide to

Unleashed

By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 12+

Sweet romantic comedy fantasy has some language, sex.

Movie NR 2017 96 minutes
Unleashed Poster Image

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What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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age 14+

Based on 1 parent review

Lb2432
Lb2432 Adult
February 26, 2019
age 14+

Cute, funny simple romantic comedy

I allowed my 11 year old boy and 13 year old girl watch. They loved it. I explained beforehand that there would be some adult humor. There was very little swearing. There was a scene with her changing in the bathroom but all you saw was her bra. When the dog changes there is a shot of his naked butt. There is some implied nudity with the cat. There is a scene with a prostitute. He is looking for a warm place to spend the night and she asks if he has money. Then you see him running out of the hotel room saying I don’t even know you. My son didn’t get it and just thought she liked him. The dog does hump a copy machine and a person in a bar. There is mention of sleeping together but the cat is fully clothed laying at top of bed. Also one girl asks other if they slept together yet and if she saw them naked. It was not embarrassing to watch with my kids and I would say depending on your child PG13/14 rating is about right. It’s a cute little romantic comedy that had us laughing. If you love dogs and cats you will enjoy this movie.

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What's the Story?

UNLEASHED is a romantic comedy fantasy about a code-writing orphan named Emma (Kate Micucci) whose ex-boyfriend leaves her and gains fame and fortune by stealing the great phone app she created. Unable to trust anyone but her rescued pets, Emma is devastated when her dog and cat go missing under a full moon, a magical occurrence predicted by her new app-creating partner, Nina (Hana Mae Lee of Pitch Perfect renown), who is an astrologist. Carl (Sean Astin) is the handyman always around, always longing for Emma's attention but never able to attain more than friend status with her. Odd, endearing, and sometimes filthy dog and cat habits provide much of the comedy. You know you are in a fantasy when Justin Chatwin, playing Diego, the cat formerly known as Ajax, finds work as a model by slithering and hissing through an audition, appropriately on a catwalk. We are to believe this immediately earns him an agent, large amounts of money, and gigs that put his enormous likenesses on looming billboards all over town. Summit the Labrador becomes Sam (Steve Howey), and when he is seen cavorting effortlessly through the park, several runners offer to pay him to train them. Diego, whose feline understanding of human nature equips him with a plan to get back with his beloved Emma, explains to Sam that, in their new human form, they must be in competition for Emma's affections because humans live in pairs and there will only be room for one of them. Both achieve some success in their campaigns, managing to "sleep" with Emma in pet-like ways -- one coiled above her pillow and the other draped across her legs at the foot of the bed. Emma expects sex from her newfound dates but only gets some nuzzles, licks, and purring. Eventually, Emma figures out these guys are actually her missing pets and consults the astrologist, who predicts another astrological convergence that will turn the guys back into pets. At this point she recognizes that steady, reliable Carl is the guy for her.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1):
Kids say: Not yet rated

The greatest charm of the frothy tale lies in its key performances. Chatwin as a scheming, sinuous cat who has been turned into a man, Howey as an eager, guileless dog also living in a man's body, and Micucci as the romantically wronged woman who loves them both are entertaining to watch. Writer-director Finn Taylor's biggest plot problem is juggling her fun interactions with the vivid, outsized personalities of the pets-come-to-human-life against Emma's growing friendship with the steady, less colorful Carl, who watches longingly from the sidelines as the hunky dog-man and the intriguing cat-man "woo" her. Somewhere in this one-joke story, we all know that Carl is the true-hearted guy who will love her (humanly) the way she deserves to be loved, just as we know that Emma deserves that kind of good guy.

But that longing can't compete in entertainment value with watching a human dog hump a lectern or a human cat lick milk from a one-serve container. So Unleashed's director Taylor has his fun giving us a cat-man in a designer suit licking his hands and then smearing the saliva around his face. Micucci's sparkle recalls spritely comic actresses of the past -- including the young Goldie Hawn, Imogen Coca, and Georgette Engel of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her resemblance to Illeana Douglas is uncanny, so it's a surprise when Douglas actually shows up in a small role as Emma's boss.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how Unleashed wants us to view its magical premise. Does the fact that pets can't be turned into humans signal that this is a lighthearted romp? Does it instruct viewers to laugh and suspend disbelief?

  • What traits and habits of your pets would you choose to mimic if this were a movie about them?

  • While animal traits as portrayed by human actors are played for comedy, what are some ways that domesticated pets and humans are similar and actually share habits and traits?

Movie Details

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