Good Boy! (DVD)

There are, most often, two things that will make it so a DVD is loaded with special features. The first is whether or not the film was a huge success at the box-office and the other is whether or not it is a kid’s movie. This so happens to be the latter.

The Good Boy! DVD is filled with little extras set primarily to entertain the children as well as a couple of goodies for the adults.

Before we get too ahead of ourselves though let's take a look at the movie itself, which I happened to enjoy quite a bit when I saw it in the theater.

Good Boy! is an excellent children's film and, for that matter, one that adults can enjoy as well. The storyline is excellent, even though it is far fetched [get it?] it is extremely fun and quite comical.

If you haven't seen it yet, Good Boy! follows Owen Baker (Liam Aiken) who has been walking dogs around the neighborhood all summer to earn his parent's approval to get a dog of his own.

Once that time comes Owen adopts a strange little dog he names Hubble and he soon finds out that Hubble has been sent as an interplanetary scout from the "Dog Star" Sirius and is on Earth to conduct a review of the canines living there, but once he realizes that dogs are not the ones running things madness ensues, including the fact that Owen gains the ability to understand and speak to his dog friends.

Given that this is a movie where dogs end up talking, and at the risk of sounding cheesy, the animals did an excellent acting job, which will be pointed out to you at every possible turn when you listen to the audio commentary with director John Hoffman and a couple of the cast members, as they joke around and give you a couple of tidbits of information that are, at times, interesting.

Now for the Bonus Features, many of these are quite boring and something not even a child would find interesting, I don't think.

Mainly are the "Dog Walking Duty" Interactive Map where you just bounce around from house to house learning little about the dog that lives there and "Pooch Profiles" which isn't that much different. The "Q&A With Hubble" Feature is just too tedious as you have to click on a microphone and then wait for the DVD to cue up Hubble's five second response and then the "Good Boy! Scrapbook" could have been scrapped itself.

But enough about the bad, what about the Good?

Well we do have a couple of goodies here that are worth a once over, such as The Making of Good Boy!, which is fun primarily to see the work that goes into making a movie where so much relies on a cast of animals, especially in a movie where they do such a good job!

Another good feature is the Deleted and Alternate Scenes, which is primarily good for the one segment where they show a few of the scenes from the movie where alternate jokes where used.

The quality of the audio is flawless with Dolby 5.1 surround sound but the video quality did look a little grainy at times, but this isn't one of those action epics so it isn't really noticeable unless you are really looking for it.

Overall, this DVD is a good buy, merely for the reason that it is a good movie. It is worth the watch just to hear Donald Faison ("Scrubs") do the voice of Wilson the boxer, quite funny!

So rent it, buy it, and enjoy!