Beverly Hills Chihuahua

December 20, 2009

Oh Disney…I should have known better…

Drew Barrymore’s annoying lisp stars as Chloe, a spoiled chihuahua living in Beverly Hills. The standard Disney plot calls for Chloe to get lost in a foreign country (Mexico), make friends with a local that’s totally opposite (a German Shepard named Delgado, voiced by Andy Garcia), while her family (a spoiled caretaker, a hunky landscaper and his lovestruck Chihuahua Papi, voiced by George Lopez) looks for her, all while being chased by a bad guy (a Doberman Pinscher, Diablo, voiced by Edward James Olmos.) From beginning to end, this film was entirely predictable…if you are a 33 year old adult woman. If you are a four year old, it’s complete celluloid excitement – anything could happen! Then again, if you’re one year old, the film is entrancing for about five minutes, then it’s back to trying to turn the TV and set top box off. Beverly Hills Chihuahua appeals to a very narrow demographic.

The best characters in the film were the packrat (Cheech Marin) and the iguana (Paul Rodriguez). At first, I thought that Tommy Chong was doing the iguana, but then I remembered that he’s not a Mexican. Disney rounded up pretty much every Mexican comic they could find…except Carlos Mencia of course. The rumors must be true…he isn’t a Mexican! Or a comic…since he’s known for stealing jokes from George Lopez…

CGI takes some of the fun out of animal adventure films. I fondly remember a silly evening back in college, adding our own narration to Milo & Otis. Sure, we were fucked out of our minds…my point is that making animals talk in films makes it harder to have fun with…of course, maybe that’s why man invented the MUTE button?

I was all ready to blame my kids and claim they forced me to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua…but that would be a total lie. I DVRed it for me, in hopes that it would be bad enough to make a really good review. Unfortunately, it was absolutely mediocre, which accounts for this absolutely mediocre review.