Dylan Simone
I bought this movie on Bluray and I really enjoyed the movie a lot. You see, Marmaduke(Owen Wilson)is a naughty great dane who has another person is his family, named Carlos The Cat (George Lopez) who is great friends with Marmaduke. One day, Marmaduke's owners decided to move to a home in California because the Dad got a job at the Dog Park. Their new house had a pool, an ocean view, and a large lawn. Here's the main plot: Marmaduke is a Great Dane living in rural Kansas with a cat named Carlos. His owner, Phil (Lee Pace), works for Bark Organic dog food. Phil is very strict, from Marmaduke's perspective. One day, Carlos tells Marmaduke that he overheard Phil saying that they were being transferred to Orange County. They move from Kansas into their new house in California. Phil's boss, Don Twombly (William H. Macy), has the goal of getting Bark Organic into every Petco store in the country. Phil and Don meet at the dog park to discuss Phil's assignment – an ad campaign to win over Petco. There, Marmaduke meets a beautiful Rough Collie named Jezebel (Fergie), whose boyfriend is Bosco (Kiefer Sutherland), a controlling and violent Beauceron with two Miniature Pinscher minions named Thunder and Lightning (Damon Wayans, Jr. and Marlon Wayans). Bosco intimidates Marmaduke, who does not want to fight. Marmaduke then meets Mazie (Emma Stone), who develops a crush on Marmaduke. He also meets Giuseppe (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a Chinese Crested dog who is afraid of everything, and Raisin (Steve Coogan), a highly intelligent but decidedly minute Dachshund. They get together at night and crash a pedigrees-only party thrown by Bosco, only to be scared away by Bosco. Marmaduke asks Mazie to help him get a girl, whom she presumes is herself but is actually Jezebel. Marmaduke has Carlos pretend to be lost in the dog park, and the two stage a fight in front of all the other dogs in order to boost Marmaduke's perceived toughness. Marmaduke then enters a dog surfing contest put together as a promotional stunt by Phil to sway Petco and beats Bosco, who is an established dog-surfing champion. They get into a fight, which appalls the Petco executives. He then takes Jezebel on Mazie's dream date, which the latter watches from afar. While the Winslow family are on Don's boat, Marmaduke throws a party, with most residents of the dog park attending save Mazie, Giuseppe and Raisin. Bosco crashes the party and discovers it was Carlos at the dog park. He then exposes Marmaduke, who loses his pedigree friends. He is left with no friends and a destroyed house. When Phil discovers the house in a wreck, he locks Marmaduke outside for the night. Marmaduke runs away, and leaves Mazie a toy that she had given him earlier. Mazie goes to Marmaduke's house, and Carlos tells her Marmaduke never returned. She then goes looking for him. Marmaduke in the meantime has met Chupadogra, a wise, elderly English Mastiff (Sam Elliott) who is feared throughout Orange County for presumably killing his owner. In reality, he ran away to lead the pack, but they abandoned him. He has spent the time alone in the woods with nothing but a blanket and his old water bowl, which reads "Buster". Buster/Chupadogra tells Marmaduke to go home and return to his family while he still has one, and then distracts a dog catcher. Marmaduke leaves, but gets lost. In the morning, the family discover him missing and begin searching for him. Mazie and the family find him at the same time on the streets, but Mazie falls into the subterranean rainwater conduit after the street below her collapses. Marmaduke jumps in after her and Phil tries to retrieve him, as well as the fire department. The fireman saves Mazie, but loses Marmaduke in the raging water. By this time, Phil has been fired for missing the meeting for the last chance with Petco. He then runs to the aqueduct that the conduits lead to and finds Marmaduke in the raging waters. He begs Marmaduke to let go of the branch he's holding onto and let the waters carry him to Phil. He reluctantly does, and is saved. Several kids get that on video and put it on YouTube. Since it generates almost 700,000 hits, Phil is rehired. Phil then talks about moving back to Kansas, but the entire family wants to stay in California. Marmaduke later confronts the pedigrees, saying that differences shouldn't matter, that they're all dogs and should have an equal share of the park. Everyone agrees and turn on Bosco, who leaves, vowing revenge. Meanwhile, the YouTube video also wins the company the Petco deal. He and Don begin thinking of new commercials when they ask each other about if the dogs could talk to each other, or even dance. The finale then shows Marmaduke, Jezebel, Mazie, Giuseppe, Raisin, and Buster, among others, dancing and singing "What I Like About You", which turns out to be the commercial. In the end, Marmaduke and Mazie are dating, Marmaduke and Jezebel are friends and all is well.
SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain
The comic strip character of Marmaduke wasn't exactly calling for a motion picture. But give a film a recognisable name and you can sell anything. Marmaduke follows the adventures of a dog and his family as they move from Kansas to California. The dog is a little prick. He purposefully causes problems, such as ruining the house, hurting people, and making a mess. He enjoys acting this way. He breaks the fourth wall and talks to us but we don't care. I don't want to hear from him. He sucks. Early on Marmaduke farts and says he is juvenile. That's the film in a nutshell. It's filled with a voice cast hoping they wont be recognised and that you'll leave before the end credits. Obviously Wilson and Sutherland are unmistakable, but I think the rest should be named and shamed. Steve Coogan, Emma Stone, Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Hand your heads. As Marmaduke and co go on a series of adventures, in one of which Marmaduke turns into a raging racist and starts hating on half-breeds. Unfortunately he doesn't go the way of Voldemort. Meanwhile the humans are involved in a very dull plot involving marketing for an organic pet food company. Pace plays the kind of father who is constantly beaten down. His family would rather he risk his job and look for their dog instead of going to an important meeting. The comedy is atrocious. I keep hearing the argument that this is for kids. Then why does it reference dozens of adult films? Almost Famous, Midnight Cowboy, The Elephant Man. These are just a few stolen lines that make no damn sense at all. There's also two drug references. This is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, with outdated and simplified lessons on life, and a sudden climax involving a road collapsing. It was horrible.
