Underdog

Underdog

To save the day, here comes Underdog, a 1970s Saturday morning cartoon transformed to glorious, semi-CGI animated life; it's a talking animal live-action film--a la BABE--with wisecracks aplenty. Voiced by Jason Lee, Underdog is the joke of the K-9 police force after his weakness for ham disrupts a public ceremony. Dejectedly, he lets himself get abducted for an animal experiment by a mad scientist, Dr. Simon Barsinister (Peter Dinklage). He escapes, doused in experimental chemicals, to become a dog with 80 times his normal strength. Jim Belushi embodies the sad-sack security guard at the laboratory who finds Underdog and takes him home as a playmate for his alienated tweener son (Alex Neuberger). The fact that chaos follows will come as no surprise, but what may is the genial tone the film maintains throughout.