Pup Star (2016)

Directed By Robert Vince

Viewed on Netflix

 

And now for the film everyone has been waiting for! A film that combines the most popular film genre, talking dog movies, with the inexplicably popular trend of musical competition television shows into one bizarre conglomeration. This conglomeration has been brought into existence by a titan of the dog film industry, Air Bud Entertainment, the once great producer of quality movies such as Air Bud and The Search For Santa Paws, who have been reduced to making films like Space Buddies and Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups. We might examine those films at a later date but today we’re talking about Pup Star, the first film in the Pup Star series, and the first film, to my knowledge, that seriously tackles the weighty question of: what would a TV singing competition in a world where dogs can talk be like?

What A Strange World We Live In, With Such Dogs In it.

Now you probably have a lot of questions. Some of these questions could be: how do the dogs talk? How long have they been able to talk? How has this radical departure from our reality changed this world? In order the answers are: Evolution Dog treats, an indeterminate length of time, and barely.

 

The Key To This Entire Crazy World.

So, just to be clear, this is a science fiction film in which in which dog treats that enable dogs, all dogs everywhere it seems, to speak. These dogs speak in full sentences and use those sentences to convey complex thoughts including desires, love and vengeance. This confirms that in this universe dogs have fully formed and human-like consciousness. This revelation should upend everything about human-dog relations, especially ideas about the human ownership of dogs and the legitimacy of dogs that do not submit to human control. None of these things come up, of course. Why do movies like this create these huge mythologies and backstories that would create world changing events just to focus on the least interesting part of those changes?

 

Like All Great Family Films This Starts In Media Res With None Of The Main Characters!

But I am getting ahead of myself, because before we examine how insane this world is we need to start watching the movie! And like all great films we start in medias res with no establishment of any of the characters! We start off with some unknown dog showing up at a red carpet event, which turns out to just be a taping of a TV show so I have no clue why they set up this entrance for him, and this dog turns out to be Rover (no last name given) the host of the hit TV show Pup Star. Rover is not the star of this movie, but rather the method of exposition, he informs the audience about the existence of those sciencemagic dog treats and that everyone on this season of Pup Star is competing against the returning champion, Bark. While Bark is a horrendous name for a dog, there is a bigger matter here. How is there a ‘returning champion’ for a singing competition show?

 

How Does This Singing Competition Work?

I never really watched those singing competition shows like American Idol or The Voice, but weren’t the entire purpose of those competitions to find NEW talent?  Why would there ever be a returning champion? Who benefits from having the winner of a previous season return and show you how much the new singers suck? Wouldn’t the winner want to be out playing concerts or recording new music or doing something to advance their own career rather than keep promoting where they got their start? Also Bark is evil because of course the returning champ that our courageous underdog (pun not intended) has to defeat must be evil so that vanquishing them can be all the sweeter.

 

DOG PUNS FOR DAYS.

After Bark’s stirring performance Tiny storms the stage in preparation for her song! Tiny, who hasn’t really been established as the protagonist or as anything for that matter, sings a ridiculously twee song about how much she loves her owner, Lou, and how she has such a wonderful family now. It is a beautifully generic way to introduce our main dog (EIGHT MINUTES IN) and the judges just love it! The dog judges who all have name puns so bad that even I would hesitate to say them as a joke.

 

Other Dog Puns In this Film: Madogga, K-9-Ye, Puparotti, Furrell, P-Diggy.

Predictably, Simon Growl (GUESS WHO HIS NAME IS A PLAY ON!) is unimpressed and gives tiny the thumbs down which means that she does not advance to the next stage. Tiny, crushed that her heartfelt declaration of the power of family did not sway Growl’s soulless being, accepts her loss with grace and begins to leave, only to be stopped at the last second by Lady Paw Paw declaring that she is using her Wild Card! Her Wild Card that has been completely established and is not at all just a cheap way to get a little more drama out of this scene.

 

The most well established part of the Pup Star Cinematic Universe.

Tiny Wins! But That Doesn’t Actually Matter.

What are the rules to this card? Who cares! Tiny is going to New York City to compete in the finals! Hooray! Ooooooor she isn’t going to New York because Tiny’s owner, Lou, has a father who is busy working all the time because Lou’s mom is dead. And all of this is told to us in THE SAME SCENE, ALL AT ONCE. Why was Tiny even allowed to compete if there is no way that she can get to NYC? Did the dad just not expect her to win? Does he think she’s a bad singer? I really wish we had gotten a scene that was super melodramatic where this tiny dog is just arguing with a man about how he never believed in her. That would be a surreal masterpiece.

But no, Tiny is a little upset but can’t show her disappointment too much. Showing too much emotion is improper for a dog when her owner is nearby. So we catch back up with them the next day when Tiny and Lou are having a tea party only to be rudely interrupted by a terrifying bird.

 

Euuch.

I don’t know what sort of effect they used to make this bird, but I need it to stop right now. Because it is scaring me. It seems a local cat shares my disgust because as soon as this bird bows it seizes upon the moment and launches itself into an attack. Not content with simply scaring off the bird or realizing that it can’t catch the bird as it has flown away, the cat continues to chase this bird, so consumed with its rage and bloodlust that nothing will stop it in its divine purpose. GO MITTENS GO, DESTROY THE ABOMINATION!

Mittens Doing The Lord’s Work.

Ahem. So after Mittens begins his/her assault Tiny follows, desperate to stop Mittens from destroying her oldest friend, Tweety. Tiny follows with Lou following her on her bike. This chasing line goes for a few streets until the group is spotted by a disgruntled dog catcher, Roland, dog catchers being Satan in every movie that has dogs in it, and this dog catcher gives his sleaziest look in response.

 

Do not look directly at this image without an emergency eye wash station handy.

Lou crashes right into the dog catching van, off screen unfortunately, and she winds up in the hospital with a broken arm. During the commotion the skeezy catcher grabbed Tiny and ran off (once again, offscreen) fleeing the scene and stealing Tiny…for some reason. It is soon revealed that Roland is running a vast criminal conspiracy where he will dognap dogs and then wait for their wealthy owners to post a reward before returning them. Now you might say, hey wouldn’t it be easy to just have the dogs tell their owners that it was this guy who stole me in the first place and then have him arrested? That does make sense, which even further illustrates the terrible conditions these dogs live in. Their testimony is clearly valued less than people’s, much less if this villainous catcher can get away with his crimes.

 

Criminal Mastermind Exploiting a Deeply Prejudiced State.

 

Another incarcerated dog, Charlie, decides that it is time to make his escape, and finishes his tunnel without a moment to lose as Roland plans to murder him the next day. Tiny decides that this would be a good time to make her escape as well, following Charlie as he makes his way onto a nearby train headed out of the city. Charlie initially doesn’t want to help Tiny but slowly begins to warm up to her. Tiny is also feeling very down because she believes that Lou is now deceased. I don’t know what Tiny saw that day, because of course this all happened off screen, but that crash must have been pretty gnarly for Tiny to believe that Lou just straight up died from running her bike into a parked van. There must have been blood EVERYWHERE.

 

Of Tragedies And Trains.

So Tiny is very upset, so upset that she begins singing a heartfelt soulful ballad about her sorrow of having a dead owner. As this song is happening we cut to Lou’s hospital room where she is singing a duet with Tiny across space and time. They’re so connected, you see, that even separated by tragedy and train rides that they still sing the same songs at the same time. It is very sweet and completely not manipulative whatsoever. Charlie doesn’t like hearing Tiny sing, because of reasons that are totally not foreshadowing his own dark and troubled past with the music business.

 

Roland Really Puts In The Extra Hours For This Job.

After this we get a very strange jump cut to back to Roland’s headquarters where Lou’s dad appeared to talk to him. I understand the setup for this scene, Lou’s dad checks in with the city pound to see if they have Tiny, but the execution is bizarre. Charlie established that the train they hopped on was the midnight train, so Lou’s dad went to the pound AFTER MIDNIGHT and just expected someone to still be there? I mean sure, Roland is still there but all I’m saying is that he got really lucky. The two talk about Tiny, and Lou’s dad tells Roland that he is offering a reward of ten thousand dollars for Tiny’s return. Now Roland knows what he must do. He must find the only dog who can help him. Kano.

 

Roland braves the terrifying junkyard to find the dog known only as Kano. He makes his way past the legions of snarling guard dogs and makes his way to the epicenter of the yard to find Kano the bounty hunter who…has an eye-patch and a large dark collar that is held on by a huge star necklace.

 

I Wasn’t Joking.

 

Roland & Kano’s Cross Country Tour!

Roland manages to convince Kano to accompany him because Kano and Charlie have unfinished business. The two set out to find the canine pair in New Orleans, as that is where the train was headed, and the movie goes to…..a bad place. A very familiar bad place for movies like this. While the first act is setting up all the insanity that we’ve seen and the final act will also have some insanity, we have unfortunately gotten to the worst part of the movie, the filler. They go to New Orleans. It is a wonderful cliche driven tour of the Big Easy, with its constant Mardi Gras celebrations and Blues music. They then go to Nashville which is I guess also kind of cliche, but the most important thing there is that they meet up with Charlie’s old flame, Emily-Rose. Then they go to NJ, which gets them to NYC. For the climax.

 

Unnamed Dog Diseases!

Sure, some things happened in that interim time. Emily-Rose revealed she has a horrible unnamed disease, Charlie is revealed to have been the original writer of the songs that Bark stole and passed off as his own to get fame. The first point about Emily-Rose’s illness is mentioned once and never again and the Charlie-Bark conflict is the only plot point the movie actually follows.

 

Eventually we meet back up with our favorite canine bounty hunter, who has laid a trap at the Pup Star headquarters to capture both Tiny and Charlie in one swoop. Kano and Roland have Tiny and Charlie cornered, all hope looks lost, and Kano throws out this witty barb:

 

Kano: What time is it, Roland?

Roland: I’ve got 5:37-

Kano REVENGE TIME!

 

Kano, just look intimidating, no need to do the wordplay.

 

Everything Wraps Up Nicely.

Things look bad, but suddenly the unsung hero of the film, Puglay (Michael Puglay is his full name….get it?), jumps out and comes to Charlie and Tiny’s aid, opening a door for them and allowing Charlie and Tiny to run out onto the stage, interrupting Bark’s performance of his new stolen song. Charlie starts singing the new song and the two have a, I guess you would call it a duet song battle? The judges declare that Charlie has bested Bark, and that by knowing the song, and having Emily-Rose back up his story, that Charlie was the true writer of the songs that Bark debuted. Bark is escorted off premises, and I assume euthanized because he is a dog who has committed crimes, and Charlie is invited back to compete in next year’s Pup Star competition. And now Tiny is back and ready to compete! Which, she does. And she wins. Because of course she does.Then everyone is happy. Except Roland and Kano who are arrested. I assume Kano is also euthanized. The End.

 

How Many Pup Star Movies Could There Be?

This one was tough. The beginning is so funny and weird and out there but that middle section was just soul crushing. I know I should really be expecting things like that to happen now, but it always comes as a shock to find that these movies are front loaded with crazy and then just stuffed with filler as an easy way to get to feature length. It goes without saying that I really don’t recommend anyone to watch the full movie here, but you could probably get some laughs out of the first thirty or so minutes. I’m really just glad to be done with Pup Star and…oh no….there’s two more of these things…..

 

 

I do not own any of the images used here. They belong to their respective owners and are used under Fair Use.