Dog Gone starts out with a bang special effects-wise. There's a bee hive with bees buzzing around it that looks like it was made out of construction paper smothered in goo. There are squirrels trying to get at a chocolate bar that look like they were rendered with a Super Nintendo cpu. It seems like there was absolutely no effort put into the film's special effects. At one point, the main bully, played by an actor no older than 12, has a stunt double that was at least twice his size riding a bike into a dumpster. Normally a mismatched double like this can be masked with quick cuts and clever angles, but no, the shot of this double is straight on and lasts several seconds. It's so jarring it could be mistaken for a cut from a different movie.
The main bully and his henchmen may be the most annoying characters in Dog Gone. The lead antagonist Dexter, played by Cameron Monaghan, who does a fine acting job in the TV series "Shameless", harasses the protagonist for seemingly no reason. He and his henchmen throw his bike into the river, strip him down into his boxers and later kick him in the stomach while he is down on the ground. Their presence is ostensibly there to instigate sympathy for the main character Owen. The problem is that these bullies are so over to the top, overacted, so full of exaggerated machismo, that the whole thing feels like a middle school dramatization of the evils of bullying. Just look at this sniveling boy henchman on the left in the screen cap. Has this expression ever existed on anyone's face off-camera?
The adult villains don't come off much better. The leader, played by the vastly talented and eclectic thespian French Stewart, starts the film dressed as a nun. He meets his two fat henchmen at the airport with a golden retriever that is stuffed with diamonds. To reinforce their gluttony, we see these henchmen stuffing themselves with chili cheese dogs. There is no less than 5 fart scenes with these characters including the ever-famous trapped in car after letting one loose gag. These completely incompetent villains also get held off by a tennis ball cannon, get stuck in the butt with porcupine needles, get sprayed by a skunk, sit on burning stoves and burn their bottoms, and roll out of control over a mile in a boat trailer.
The main character, Owen (played by Luke Benward), is probably the least offensive character in the movie. However, his bland and inoffensive presence is used in the most insidious way as a blank canvas for many of the other awful characteristics children's films have. He is unrealistically industrious and intelligent, making it trivial to beat the stupid adults. Love interests are shoehorned in order to portray him as a normal adolescent (not gay! not gay!). He is brave and courageous while at the same time being very sensitive and caring: basically the perfect hero. All of this makes his character ring false. He is never allowed to explore real human emotions like fear, which would surely arise when being threatened with a knife. This makes his character and the entire movie a hollow piece of fiction. This, of course, is nothing new in children's media.
Lastly, as the title of this review would suggest, the name of this movie is confusing. The syntax reminds me of a recent film titled "Country Strong", and it sounds equally Frankenstein-esque. The word gone in itself is a perplexing choice. Does it imply that the dog left somehow, that it went somewhere? Saying the dog has gone implies a certain amount of action on the part of the dog to leave. Sure, the dog was kidnapped, assaulted, stolen, and threatened, which may render some titles such as "Dog Cut Open" or "Dog Stuffed With Diamonds", but doesn't fit well with the chosen title.
