“Isle of Dogs” is cute, as its trailer
promises, but it is cold and insubstantial. There’s a scene on the eponymous Isle of
Dogs where the main characters stumble upon the canine skeleton of a beloved
household pet who starved to death in a locked cage. I love dogs and just the
thought of that scene should reduce me to tears. I felt nothing, and that was
my reaction to the entire movie. I didn’t laugh or cry. I just didn’t care.
Cute dog puppets? Check. Anything else? Not much.
I did love the taiko drum soundtrack,
and hope to buy it. But taiko drumming has nothing to do with dogs. I also
really liked the voice talent, including Bryan Cranston, who is just terrific
and memorable as the voice of a tough stray dog, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray
Abraham, and Edward Norton.
The plot is unnecessarily convoluted and
violent, and told rather than shown. There is endless voiceover narration. “And
then this happened and then this happened and then this happened.” Everything
is so exaggerated and divorced from any real dogginess that I could not relate.
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