The Chronicles of Ernie and Cerbie (2018)
Directed by Tammy A. Williams
Continuing our look at the strangest of the strange dog movies, today we take a look at a film that boldly mashes together Greek Myth and Catholic Orphanages while adding just enough of a telepathic dog to land it a spot in this series, The Chronicles of Ernie and Cerbie! And yes, that is the full title because this isn’t just a movie, this is much much more. Come with me and we’ll explore the memorable world of Ernie and Cerbie!
LET THE SAGA COMMENCE!
The Chronicles of Ernie and Cerbie is about Eros, the Greek god of love and sexuality, who has grown bored of his cushy job of uniting people in the throes of passion and, with the help of his mother, decides that he must go to Earth in the form of a child, along with a dog that I think is supposed to be Cerberus to learn what love is. Insert played out ‘What Is Love?’ joke here.
How Does Greek God Parentage Work Anyway?
Already I have a ton of questions. First of all, we see Eros interacting with his Mom on several occasions, does he not love his mom? Or is the movie implying that Eros didn’t have a childhood and doesn’t know about a child’s love? Or maybe it’s implying that he loves her differently…….and if so eugh. Well, this is Greek mythology so I knew this was going to get weird. I’m just happy this movie isn’t about Zeus’ sexual misadventures.
Ernie Starts By Crawling Out Of A Pond (Like You Do)
After crawling out of a pond that is a link between worlds (go with it),
which is very dangerous because creatures of darkness could also get through there maybe, and wandering into town where he is assaulted by a homeless man, Eros (who calls himself Ernie after he is reminded of who he is after he touches Cerbie’s magic collar, also Cerbie can communicate telepathically with Ernie because of course he can) is found by the police and sent to a Catholic orphanage (which is weird because ORPHANAGES NO LONGER EXIST IN AMERICA) because he has no parents. Essentially there are two parts of this movie. About 1/6 of the movie where Eros is lamenting his life and how he can’t experience love and whatnot, but the rest of the movie is just Ernie at an orphanage/church (churchphanage? Orphanurch?) where he occasionally touches people and CGI sparkles transfer into them and then they love someone.
Sorry Kid, Your Parents Aren’t Here Now, Time To Find New Ones.
With the majority of the movie taking place at this orphanurch, I was wondering what exactly would happen. Mostly what happens is that this kid, Leto, who looks like a shrunken Ed Sheeran, tries to sabotage Ernie’s chances at getting adopted. Which should be easy because they don’t know what happened to Ernie’s parents so he probably shouldn’t be up for adoption yet but I don’t know how churchphanages work.
Enter Joey. The Supposed Heart of This Movie.
Also, Ernie meets a little boy with cancer, Joey. Joey has cancer, you see. Please don’t forget that Joey has cancer, but I’ll keep reminding you anyway because the movie never wants you to forget either. Joey is not a character. Joey is a prop. A prop that the movie uses to remind us how good Ernie is because Ernie shows compassion to Joey and helps him. It isn’t a bad message, you should help people and be nice to them, but Joey never has any character development. He’s just there to show us how great Ernie is.
A Decade In An Orphanage Would Make You Mean Too…
So Ernie’s great act of charity is when he convinces a family that instead of adopting him, they should adopt Joey instead. This pisses off Mini-Sheeran who reveals that he and his sister have been at this for a FULL DECADE. Sheeran, the lesser, confronts Ernie about this and does admittedly say some pretty mean things to him, but Ernie’s rebuttal is swift and brutal. Ernie tells Leto that the reason no one wants to adopt him is that he is too mean. I know Micro-Sheeran is a bit of a dick, but christ Ernie, he and his sister are perma-orphans, maybe try to understand how shitty their life is before telling him it’s all his fault.
ENTER THE VILLAIN OF THE FILM….Next Time!
While Leto reels from the verbal smackdown delivered by Ernie we see the first signs of what could be a villain. Remember those creatures of darkness I mentioned waaaaay at the beginning of this? Well, now we see one in all of its budget CG glory stepping through the portal to…do nothing because that’s the end of the movie. Seriously, this is where the story ends, with a To Be Continued at the 77-minute mark. I eagerly await the sequel which will definitely get made.
This is such a fascinating movie to me. Not so much the plot itself because that pretty much stops around the 30-minute mark, but how everything fits together. It’s about gods from the Greek Pantheon (why Eros and Cerberus are best friends, I have no clue because I don’t think they ever interact in the old stories but whatever. I suppose the short answer is they needed a dog in the movie and Cerberus is the only dog from Greek myth that they knew of.) which feels weird when we go to a Catholic church and the story becomes mildly faith-based and I have to wonder, how does this Greek Pantheon jibe with Catholicism?
How Much Can Good Intentions Make Up For?
All of that being said though, I would definitely recommend watching Ernie and Cerbie. There’s an entire subplot to the movie that I didn’t even mention about a detective trying to figure out where Ernie came from that I couldn’t even talk about because everything else was so crazy that I had to focus on that. One thing I definitely don’t want to do though is speak negatively about the cast & crew here. Even though the way it is made is silly, I do appreciate that Ernie & Cerbie’s heart is generally in the right place and that counts for a lot. This movie isn’t a cash grab, it is actually trying to help with some important issues and I appreciate that.
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