Directed By Mark Koetsier, Rob Minkoff, and Chris Bailey

Starring – Michael Cera, Ricky Gervais, Samuel L. Jackson

The Plot – A hard-on-his-luck hound Hank (Cera) finds himself in a town full of cats who need a hero to defend them from a ruthless villain’s (Gervais) evil plot to wipe their village off the map. With help from a reluctant teacher (Jackson) to train him, our underdog must assume the role of town samurai and team up with the villagers to save the day. The only problem… cats hate dogs.

Rated PG for action, violence, rude and suggestive humor, and some adult language

Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank | Official Trailer (2022 Movie) – Paramount Pictures – YouTube

POSITIVES

It’s clear that a majority of the movie’s 45-million-dollar budget was spent on its extensive ensemble of A-listers, but it does produce more than a few endearing turns between them that prove a few of them have a great future in voice acting. First is certainly Cera, who for the first time ever feels like he’s delivering with an air of energy and excitement in his vocal range that he uses to enact a sizzle of on-screen presence. His familiarity is certainly still there, but there’s a palpable eagerness to his portrayal that not only pays his capabilities a great dividend, but also works wonderfully in the personality of his titular protagonist, with his own will to be the hero he was born to become. Sharing a surprisingly strong bond in chemistry with Cera is Jackson, whose spunky charisma lends itself entirely to the cartoon format with intense deliveries that work cohesively brilliant with the exaggeration of the animation. Speaking of which, Nickelodeon’s signature brand of style once more translates seamlessly to the spectacle of the silver screen, creating more than a few transfixing instances that it uses to craft a consistency of personality that mirrors its kung-fu beats from the script. These permeate in the form of side-scrolling transitions, diverse aspect ratios, and various shadow play to add to the already rich combinations in texture of two-dimensional color and three-dimensional character constructs crafting something truly diverse compared to other studios of the contemporary age, and for the integrity of the project a presentational ambition that justifies the decision to save it entirely for the biggest screen imaginable. Finally, while I have various qualms about the material of the script, smooth, free-flowing pacing kept it continuously moving along the way. “Paws of Fury” clocks in at an average 92-minute run time, so that leaves very little time of lagging with the movements of the story or the essence of the urgency, which can be felt in simultaneous shifts of focus between the two rival sides. It kept my investment from ever feeling taxing, and in the case of the film never overstays its welcome with the extent of the material.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, there’s so much working against this film that keeps it from competing against other animated properties in an age where they are some of the best films of each year they decorate. This begins immediately with the humor, which is a colossal disaster alternating between repeated bodily humor gags and verbal puns so shallow that they often hammer them home for additional times, even after they fail dramatically after the first time. To the movie’s credit, there were some effective sight gags during the movie’s progression, but they’re unfortunately few and far between this meta-breaking circumstance of material that wastes no opportunity to desperately wink and nod to its audience, which in turn is one of many aspects that soil the authenticity of the enveloping engagement. This is also ruined by contemporary references of pop culture that not only have nothing to do with the film or the scene they decorate, but they prematurely date the film in a bubble of corporate shelling whose sole purpose is to sell downloads and inflict product placement in any scene or sequence that accommodate. Beyond this, the screenplay itself feels like a series of predictable notes and pasted cliches that riddles its narrative to forgettable status long before the film concludes, with the derivative nature of its borrowing feeling the sting of its own lack of originality. The film that feels most impacted from this sentiment is easily the 1974 comedy classic “Blazing Saddles”, which not only has the entirety of its plot directly lifted for this occasion, but even casts Saddles writer Mel Brooks as a role in the film itself. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see this as a stripped-down PG-rated animated remake of that original film, with Jackson being giftwrapped instances where he could use his favorite curse word combo, only to have them overrun by television censorship of the worst kind. There are also aspects of the script that completely don’t make sense, whether in an antagonist who gives the weakening village a warrior of hope to fight their cause instead of just smashing them to pieces, or an antagonist character who just suddenly springs a conscience for no reason at all to join the protagonists. It makes the film feel periodically disjointed, in that missing scenes could’ve been the missing link as the justification for some of these instances, but for my money, it’s just sloppy execution that serves as a reminder for how creators treat child audiences in a majority of these films, leaving it as nothing further than a surface level delve of an idea that never had the room of growth to expand on its potential. Finally, while the film does culminate in a climax and final battle that wages all of the pre-determined stakes of its storytelling, the resolution is something that feels highly predictable and emphatically inconsequential even to a children’s-first movie. The immense scale of the battle makes it seem like some ample time will be dedicated to its cause, but unfortunately everything seamlessly falls into place in ways that doesn’t even momentarily stress tension to childlike audiences, wasting away yet another chance to elude blandness and the forgettable nature of its arrival that will disappear from theaters just as quickly as the aforementioned conflict.

OVERALL
“Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank” isn’t a family film, but rather a kids one, full of unfunny and obvious jokes that underwhelm the talents of its impressively collective ensemble on the way to creating a strange-but-true animated remake of “Blazing Saddles”. Though the versatility of the animation wholeheartedly warrants your attention, the lack of originality equally condemns it, leaving it an uninspired adaptation with not nearly enough bite to its boisterously obnoxious bark.

My Grade: 5/10 or D+