Tired and conventional as it may be, Underdog is a movie that I kind of admire. While it is essentially a cable-quality kids’ flick blown up for the big screen to rake in box-office dollars, the picture has an audience for which it will do nothing but good things. In nearly every respect, Underdog is unoriginal, but it’s also entirely harmless. Parents who take their children will be happy to have found such a wholesome entertainment, and they will usually find it perky enough to enjoy for themselves as well.

     But I’m not just praising Underdog for brilliantly marketing itself towards the six-year-olds of America. Lots of releases regularly do just this and I find them thoroughly insufferable as such (the recent Are We Done Yet? and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles spring instantly to mind as proof). What separates this feature from a wasteland of others is the fact that it’s actually a good movie for its target audience to be watching. Underdog’s themes are inspiring enough for children, and there isn’t a bit of off-color language or innuendo to be found in its contents.

     With the aforementioned being said, I should also note that the movie is also rather amusing on its own. Jason Lee voices Underdog, the famous once-cartoon-character Beagle who mistakenly gains extraordinary abilities when his DNA is tampered with by a mad-scientist (played wonderfully here by a hilariously out-of-place by Peter Dinklage) at an animal lab. As Underdog uses his incredible powers to save Washington D.C. from evil alongside new owner Jack (Alex Neuberger), the movie is effortlessly enjoyable. Lee’s sardonic voice-work spices up the rather boringly written comedy and the fast pace created by director Frederik du Chau makes the viewer forget how clichéd the film’s plot is.

     There isn’t much to Underdog, but it works for what it is. The film doesn’t have any ambitions outside of that of entertaining its intended audience, but it shouldn’t need to. It’s a picture of modest intentions, and it fulfills these in all the ways that a viewer might want.

-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews (8.12.2007)