Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Marmaduke’ on Netflix, Miserable Kiddie Fodder Featuring Pete Davidson As The Voice of a Troublemaking Dog

Aficionados of old-school newspaper comic strips, undiscerning children, and drool connoisseurs take note, Marmaduke is back, now in animated form, on Netflix. For those not in the know, a Marmaduke primer: He’s an extra-giant Great Dane who’s been the star of a comic since 1954, and you’ll marvel at how its artists and creators have managed to stretch a single joke – hey wow look at the large animal – into roughly 24,800 single-panel gags during its 68-year run (and counting). The apparently deathless joke became a live-action movie in 2010, when the voice of Owen Wilson spewed from between the blabbering dog’s CGI lips. And now, a fully animated feature streams before us, the dog’s voice provided by Pete Davidson in the same tone he likely used to give the production company his direct-deposit information. But is it funny? Our comprehensive assessment will determine and answer to that, surely the most vital question of our times.

MARMADUKE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Marmaduke belongs to the Winslow family, who just can’t control their dog. In this iteration, he seems to be a pretty normal-sized Great Dane (I once knew a 175-pounder), but is constantly in trouble, so that still makes him the equivalent of what, about 20 delinquent chihuahuas? He’s locked in the house for Billy’s birthday party, because the grilled meats, bouncy castle and trampleable attendees are at risk. There’s an incident with a bee that causes Marmaduke to smash out the window and fall in the swimming pool and flood the entire neighborhood with so much water, in order for the known laws of physics to apply in this reality, the dog must possess the velocity and density of an asteroid and the pool, the capacity of Lake Titicaca. And if you laughed at “Lake Titicaca,” congratulations, but your vulnerability to the low-bar comedy of “Titicaca” still doesn’t guarantee your entertainment as this movie’s potential audience.

As this crap always goes in the 21st century, especially when screenwriters have zero original ideas, the pool incident was captured on video and goes viral, making Marmaduke famous. The “world’s greatest dog trainer” (Brian Hull) sees Marmaduke as his latest challenge and convinces the Winslow family to not only let him teach the dog to be obedient, but also enter him in a competitive dog show with a million-dollar prize. The family loves their dog despite his faults, especially young Billy (Terry Douglas), who puts on his 10-gallon hat and saddles up on Marmaduke just like Bronco Henry would. But the dad, Phil (David Koechner), isn’t against exploiting the pup so he can buy a fancy sports car. So they hand Marmaduke’s leash over to the conceited jerk dog trainer.

Normally, a movie like this would fill the run time with hijinks upon hijinks and then conclude with the competition, but no, this one features TWO competition sequences. The first arrives at the end of the first act, and is worth a little descriptive detail so you know what you’re getting into. Here goes. There’s a cretinous Afghan hound named Zeus (J.K. Simmons) who wins all these things, and isn’t above manipulating his competition into achieving failure. Case in point, Marmaduke. Zeus talks our gullible protagonist into eating several smorgasbords right before the show begins, and just as the trainers parade the dogs in front of 500 attendees, Marmaduke gets the ol’ rumbleguts, animated like he swallowed a python and it’s still alive and kicking in there. He’s farting up a storm. It is clear: Marmaduke has a desperate load to relinquish. DUKEY DEFCON 1. The nearest receptacle is the grand-prize cup so he takes aim and unleashes a green nuclear poo mushroom cloud that has members of the crowd either scampering away from the fallout zone, passing out or vomiting in their hats – just how Marmaduke creator Brad Anderson drew it up back in ’54, no doubt.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Remember how Garfield was animated and Odie was a real dog? Dunno about you, but I’m still boiling-hot with rage over that one. Also, there hasn’t been this much fart-based fodder in a piece of content since Son of Stimpy.

Performance Worth Watching: Searching for something, anything worth watching in this movie is akin to digging a corn kernel out of – well, you know.

Memorable Dialogue:

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Marmaduke makes Scoob! look like Old Yeller. It’s bottom-of-the-barrel-at-the-dog-park feculence. It has all the charm of an overflowing ashtray. The animation is cheap-looking and the screenplay has no jokes. It peaks with the fart-fallout sequence and lets us sit in that lingering stinkcloud for the remaining 45 minutes. It’s a miserable, empty and utterly forgettable experience. It’s hot, wet, stinking, flaming, moronic, sleep-inducing garbage. It is a bad movie. Do not watch it.

We should be offended by the film’s cynical notion that children will be entertained by anything featuring talking animals who possess functional anuses. Sure, grade-schoolers can be obsessed with gastrointestinal comedy, but trash content like this just talks down to them; children are emotionally sophisticated, and Pixar not only proved that, but banked its commercial and creative empire on it. Marmaduke is so awful, I’m tempted to philosophize: Perhaps, like good and evil, light and darkness, yin and yang, Pixar wouldn’t exist without its aesthetic counterpoint. Case in point.

Our Call: Woof. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.