Yesterday, we went to some dark places courtesy of Tim Burton. My next allegedly kiddie-friendly flick is far more pedestrian but also likely to induce night terrors due to some truly unnecessary scenes of animal abuse. All seems initially fine and dandy with 2013’s K9 Christmas: Scoot and Kassie’s Christmas Adventure, being as it is the tale of young Kassie (Ariana Bagley) rescuing a retired, wounded Alsatian police dog, leading to the twosome foiling the plot of two crooked bank robbers. Sure, the film is full of wholesome hijinks, cute doggie fun and lots of singing, but the opening scenes that show how veteran police dog Scoot comes to be injured are properly upsetting.
The courageous hound is hot on the heels of two bungling burglars (Taylor Negron and Jake Suazo) but then gets tangled in some barbed wire. Negron’s hammy acting style is spot-on for a cartoonish kid’s movie villain and his character is such a dick that he then gleefully chucks the injured dog in the river for the crime of being a ‘slimy police dog.’ It’s messed up! This was upsetting enough for me, so lord knows what an eight year old would think of it.
Thankfully, this traumatising opening is as bad as it gets and once Scoot is rescued by our 10 year old heroine, it’s all standard kiddie fluff from then on in. Kassie’s new in town and, of course, her mum has recently passed away leaving handsome dad Paul, (Luke Perry) feeling morose and trying to pick up the pieces of his life. Perry is fantastic, radiating a sincere sense of pathos through a tired, weary face that signals he has transitioned effortlessly from heartthrob to world-weary father figure, albeit one who can still get the chicks.
The acting is pretty solid for a film aimed at tweens and, with the help of awesome pooch Scoot, Kassie is soon fitting in with her new schoolmates and joins the local choir. At this point, the film seems to forget it's meant to be a cute canine adventure story and decides to spend waaaay too much time on the singing stuff. The choir scenes drag on for ages, padding out a sturdy but basic plot. The film starts to feel like a bit of a con, coming across as more of an advertising showcase for the original song ‘We Can Do Anything,’ which the kids manage to perform about ten bloody times. It’s oddly less cute when the kids are clearly awesome professional singers and they all do that awful over-the-top Mariah-style warbling as though auditioning for America’s Got Talent. Urgh. The film also doesn’t mention Christmas all that much either which is weird, but has quite a fair bit of prayer going on, which is surprising only because, oddly, it’s not something you actually see that much in Christmas movies.
Naturally, the baddies from that disturbing opening just happen to be working at Dad’s bank and turn out to be planning to rob the donations for the kids charity drive. Kassie and Scoot race to save the day, with a little help from her choir buddies and a lot of paintballs in a crescendo that is filmed in such a way that it’s a little difficult to work out what the hell’s actually going on. Scoot, however, really doesn’t get much to do save for barking a bit and the whole robbery plot is tied up pretty quickly, allowing them to get back to even more singing. Urgh. But not before Negron finds time to wallop the poor mutt again. There is so much more doggie abuse here than you would ever expect.
The church-set ending seems to go on forever, with a way-too-long choreographed song and dance number that makes my soul hurt and really outstays its welcome. I’d assumed this was conceived as a direct-to-video sequel to the James Belushi cop/canine buddy cop flick K9 that I’d enjoyed as a kid. Turns out the filmmakers just tagged the ‘K9’ title on there to sell more DVDs. I’ve been suckered into what is essentially an 80 minute Christian Rock music video. The rascals!
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