Clifford The Big Red Dog
Puppy love and corporate greed materialise in a likeable child-friendly confection in which Jack Whitehall wins over the dog paws down.
Clifford is a big red dog, the handiwork of Norman Bridwell. Prior to his death in 2014, Bridwell had authored and illustrated sixty Clifford books and seen his creation spawn three animated TV series, a stage musical, a TV movie and now this theatrical feature. With CGI being what it is and no dog big enough to fill Clifford’s paws, the computer-animated approach seemed the way to go, with a sprinkling of colourful human characters.
As the premise for an outsize Labrador is inherently ridiculous, the powers-that-be have opted for a comic approach, in the tradition of, say, Paddington. Thus, a particular neighbourhood of Harlem in Upper Manhattan has been transformed into an astonishingly friendly, multi-cultural locality. With a voice-over supplied by John Cleese and our twelve-year-old heroine Emily Howard’s mother being English (Sienna Guillory), there is a strong Anglo-Saxon feel to the proceedings. In addition, there’s the London-born Jack Whitehall as Emily’s uncle Casey, who moved to New York when he was two and picked up every American accent available to him. Then there’s Clifford, who sneaks his way into the Howards’ apartment via Emily’s backpack and whose size is determined by the magnitude of Emily’s love. And then there’s Zac Tieran (Tony Hale), the rapacious CEO of Lyfegro, a shady genetics company that manufactures belligerent sheep and wants Clifford for its own means.
All this aside, the elephant in the room is the dog. No CGI creation can reproduce the infectious adorability of a real pooch, and no doubt Lassie will be spinning in her pet cemetery. The film succeeds as a jolly diversion because of its cast, who are fed some genuinely funny lines by the three scenarists. As always, Jack Whitehall is innately amusing and brings great comic timing to his schlep, even when he’s not murdering the American tongue. He even gets to mimic an English accent, which is kind of surreal, but will fly over the heads of the film’s intended audience. Director Walt Becker keeps things moving at an agreeable clip and there’s plenty of decent visual gags. Darby Camp is a poppet as Emily, although she has a slightly irritating vocal delivery, something that can be amended in the future with a proficient voice coach. It’s only Clifford himself, with his expressionless features and noxious flatulence, that leaves a (very big) hole at the centre of the movie.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Jack Whitehall, Darby Camp, Tony Hale, Sienna Guillory, David Alan Grier, Russell Wong, Kenan Thompson, John Cleese, Tovah Feldshuh, Izaac Wang, Paul Rodriguez, Horatio Sanz, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Rosie Perez, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Keith Ewell, Mia Ronn, Ty Jones, Bear Allen-Blaine, Yasha Jackson.
Dir Walt Becker, Pro Jordan Kerner and Iole Lucchese, Screenplay Jay Scherick, David Ronn and Blaise Hemingway, from a story by Justin Malen and Ellen Rapoport, Ph Peter Lyons Collister, Pro Des Naomi Shohan, Ed Sabrina Plisco, Music John Debney, Costumes Susan Lyall.
Entertainment One/New Republic Pictures/The Kerner Entertainment Company/Scholastic Entertainment-Entertainment One.
96 mins. USA/UK/Canada. 2021. US Rel: 10 November 2021. UK Rel: 10 December 2021. Cert. PG
