CatsDogs is a 2001 spy-comedy film directed by Lawrence Guterman and written by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. It stars Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Perkins and Alexander Pollock, with the voices of (among others) Tobey Maguire, Alec Baldwin, Sean Hayes, Susan Sarandon, Charlton Heston, Jon Lovitz, Joe Pantoliano and Michael Clarke Duncan.
The story centers on the relationships between cats and dogs, depicting the relationship as an intense rivalry in which both sides use organizations and tactics that mirror those used in human espionage. It was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on July 4, 2001. The film received mixed reviews and earned $200.7 million on a $60 million budget.
The Brody family's pet Bloodhound Buddy chases a cat and is captured by other cats in an ambush. Cats and dogs are revealed to be highly intelligent, tech-savvy enemies capable of speech, waging war with covert operatives while concealing their true nature from humans. After an Anatolian Shepherd dog named Butch reports Buddy's capture to his superiors, the best canine agents are dispatched to complete Buddy's mission: to prevent the cats from making all humans allergic to dogs.
Meanwhile, Mr. Tinkles, a white Persian cat, plans to exploit the Brodys' patriarch Charles' research on dog allergies to conquer the world. His scheming is interrupted by Sophie, his comatose owner's maid, who enjoys dressing Tinkles in embarrassing costumes. Tinkles orders his sidekick Calico, an Exotic Shorthair, to send Devon Rex ninjas to steal the research. Lou foils the theft and meets a former agent and Butch's ex-girlfriend Ivy, a Saluki who encourages him to bond with Scotty.
Mr. Tinkles contracts a Russian Blue mercenary named Dimitri Kennelkoff, who tricks Lou and places a bomb on Brody's lab door. Kennelkoff battles Lou and Butch, damaging the Brodys' house until Butch disables the bomb and captures Kennelkoff. During the interrogation, the dogs recover a note by Mr. Tinkles from Kennelkoff's stomach.
After a breakthrough involving Lou playing with Scotty, Charles' machine finally finds the formula to a cure for human allergies to dogs. Having bugged the house, Mr. Tinkles and Calico spring a trap for the Brodys. First, Mr. Tinkles travels to a Christmas tree flocking plant under the guise of the plant's comatose owner, Mr. Mason, and sends the employees home, then lures the Brodys with fake tickets to a soccer exhibition game, capturing the family.
The dogs receive a video from Mr. Tinkles demanding Charles' research as a ransom for the Brodys, and dogs around the world assemble at a meeting, led by a Mastiff. When the assembly decides not to surrender the formula, Lou confronts Butch. Revealing that he was abandoned by his owner, the unsympathetic Butch leaves Lou behind. Desperate, Lou brings Mr. Tinkles the research and is double-crossed. Butch, realizing what has happened, stages a raid of Mr. Tinkles' factory where mice are being prepared to spread the mass-produced allergy.
While Butch, Ivy, Peek, and Sam fight Tinkles' cat forces, Lou frees the Brodys and Calico, who was betrayed by Tinkles, revealing to the family that he can speak. Lou defeats Tinkles but is struck by an excavator as an explosion destroys the whole factory. Butch rescues the seemingly dead Lou, tearfully admitting that Lou was right to love his adoptive family, and Lou awakens. He decides to return to a normal pet's life with the Brodys until he can serve as a full-grown agent.
The film was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia and Eagle Creek Studios in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada[4] from June 19 to November 17, 2000. Lou's doghouse was filmed on Stage 1, Mr. Mason's office and the interior of the tree flocking factory was filmed on Stage 2, and the international meeting with the dogs was filmed on Stage 3, while the backyard of the Brody house was filmed on the studio backlot,[5] and the front exterior of the Brody house was filmed at 1661 W 45th Avenue in Vancouver.[6]
Cats & Dogs was released on VHS and DVD on October 23, 2001.[9] An alternate ending that shows Sophie instead taking Mr. Tinkles to a pet hospital to be neutered was also included as one of the extras. It was later released on Blu-ray on July 20, 2010,[10] 10 days before the release of its sequel, The Revenge of Kitty Galore.
The Washington Post's Jane Horwitz called it "[a] surprisingly witty and sophisticated spy movie spoof that will tickle adult pet lovers and still capture kids 6 and older with its boy-and-his-dog love story and pet slapstick".[13] Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4, praising the special effects and the CGI.[14] In contrast, Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Irritating, childish and more frantic than funny, Cats & Dogs does manage some few pleasant moments, but they are not worth waiting for".[citation needed]
Cats & Dogs was nominated for the Young Artist Award for Best Feature Film (Comedy) and Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor (Alexander Pollock). John Debney won the ASCAP Award for his musical contribution to this film as well as The Princess Diaries and Spy Kids.
Heston received the 2001 Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his role as The Mastiff in this film, Mr. Claybourne in Town and Country, as well as for his cameo role in Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes.[15]
A sequel titled Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, directed by Brad Peyton, was released on July 30, 2010. Michael Clarke Duncan, Joe Pantoliano, and Sean Hayes reprised their roles as Sam, Peek, and Mr. Tinkles while Nick Nolte and Wallace Shawn replaced Alec Baldwin and Jon Lovitz as Butch and Calico. In this film, Lou is now an adult and is voiced by Neil Patrick Harris. James Marsden, Christina Applegate, and Bette Midler voice new characters named Diggs, Catherine, and Kitty Galore respectively.
A third installment and stand-alone sequel, subtitled Paws Unite!, features a new storyline taking place 10 years after the events of the previous film. However, unlike the previous two, the third film has been released as a straight-to-video release on digital on September 15, 2020, and on DVD and Blu-ray on October 13. It is also the only film to not have any of the original cast members. The new voice cast includes Melissa Rauch, Max Greenfield and George Lopez. It was directed by Sean McNamara, co-produced by Andrew Lazar and David Fliegel, and written by Scott Bindley. It is distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The film received a nationwide theatrical release in Australia on September 24, and in the UK on October 2.
Kitty Galore, formerly an agent for cat spy organization MEOWS, has gone rogue and hatched a diabolical plan to not only bring her canine enemies to heel, but take down her former kitty comrades and make the world her scratching post.
At a satellite base in Northern Germany, a worker named Freidrich (Fred Armisen), delivering secret codes finds a labrador puppy outside his office. He brings the puppy inside, showing her to his pet bloodhound Rex (voiced by Len Morganti). Rex senses something is wrong with the puppy and starts to bark at her, making the worker take him outside. Both are locked out of the office. Rex looks in the window, seeing the puppy taking pictures of the top secret documents and later revealing to be Kitty Galore (voiced by Bette Midler), a female hairless cat. Rex is revealed to be a dog agent and reports to HQ.
In San Francisco, Diggs (voiced by James Marsden), a German Shepherd police dog and his owner Shane Larson (Chris O'Donnell) are called to a hostage situation at Crazy Carlito's used car lot. Diggs deliberately ignores Shane's commands, attacking Crazy Carlito (Paul Rodriguez) and making him release a device that Diggs grabs, which makes the car lot office blow up. Butch (voiced by Nick Nolte) and Lou (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) are watching footage of the incident. Lou, no longer a field agent having been promoted to official level hence being termed "desk jockey" by Butch, wants Diggs to be an agent with Butch as his mentor (to his reluctance) to help defeat Kitty Galore.
At the police station, Diggs is suspended and sent back into the kennels. Shane wants to adopt Diggs, but the police will not allow it. Butch recruits Diggs and takes him to HQ. Lou gives them a mission to track down a stool pigeon named Seamus (voiced by Katt Williams), who is an informant for the dogs and apparently is being hunted down by Kitty Galore.
After tracking down Seamus, Diggs and Butch meet a M.E.O.W.S. agent named Catherine (voiced by Christina Applegate), who was after Seamus for the same reason the dogs were. She reveals that Kitty was once an agent named Ivana Clawyu who worked for M.E.O.W.S. until about a year ago; Ivana was on a mission at a cosmetics factory during which a guard dog chased her into a vat of hair removal cream causing her to lose all her fur and give her the appearance of a Sphynx cat. Unrecognizable and humiliated by her cat comrades, she left M.E.O.W.S. to return to her human home at Christmas, but unfortunately was kicked out. Since then, Kitty went rogue and has been plotting her revenge on not only dogs, but cats and humans as well.
Needing help to find out where Kitty could be hiding, they go see Mr. Tinkles (voiced by Sean Hayes) who is locked up, in a similar fashion as Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, at a hidden prison on Alcatraz Island (he was presumably sent there from developing insanity from his torturous time with Mr. Mason's maid and her sisters since the first film). Though he refuses to tell them Kitty's exact location, he gives a hint to the group that "a cat's eye reveals everything" and that he is planning his escape. Kitty discovers through an informant at the prison that the cats and dogs are working together and sends two Scottish orange tabby cat mercenaries named Angus and Duncan MacDougall (voiced by Michael Beattie and Jeff Bennett) to attack them and capture (and possibly assassinate) Seamus on the boat returning from the prison. After getting fed up with Diggs not listening to his commands (letting a carrier pigeon lead get away, almost getting the team drowned in a kitty litter death trap and letting the MacDougall Twins escape), Butch angrily dismisses him and leaves with Seamus to the pigeon's home to find clues, leaving Catherine with Diggs. Catherine takes Diggs to her home. Diggs is proven ticklish when Catherine's nieces tickle his tummy. Catherine discovers that Diggs has been in and out of kennels his whole life due to the fact that he never trusted anyone but himself. She then takes him to the Cat HQ. Diggs, Catherine and Tab learn that Kitty is hiding at a fairground with her new master, a magician named Chuck the Magnificent (Jack McBrayer), from a still picture from her video - by looking in the eyes like Mr. Tinkles said.
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