Mark this, my movie watching brothers and sisters, for this is the day where America, nay the world, gains the moral high ground in the long war for who is most responsible for bad cinema. My friends, it is no longer just the burden, nay, the onus of America to bare this weight… but the French now join us in dishonor.

No, it is not the first such degradation to the soul the French are responsible for, and sure America has made worse films, but this is the film with such a hideous computerized abomination of our furry companions… the common Felis Catus and Canus Familiaris.

AND perhaps Netflix bares some of the burden, for it is they, my dear reader, who have picked up this French flurry of furry fury and placed it on their international streaming service so it reaches its blood-stained paw across borders and lowers our collective intelligence, our soul, the very spark of life that God, in His infinite wisdom, has bestowed upon the species we call human.

Yeah, Cat and Dog is a pretty bad movie, folks. It’s the tail (hah! get it!) of a jewel thief and a social media influencer and how they lose their pets. And the tale (awww) of the abominable CGI “cat” and “dog” as they travel across “New York State”.

Dear reader, I will now spin you a tale of a time in our distant past where we once chose to share our lives with an extinct species of animals which we called dogs and cats. We loved these creatures but they, sadly, died out in the great plague of 1983 (whereupon we trained domesticated apes in their stead, but that’s a whole other story).

I tell you this to explain why the filmmakers of Cat and Dog used expensive digital resources to replicate these furry companions. What else would explain the need to render them in shitty CGI instead of using actual physical cats and dogs?

Wait! What? These animals still exist in the wild and in our homes? Well… why didn’t they just use real animals and CGI their mouths like other movies do? Or just use voice overs? Or spend real money and make them look actually not terrible?

Yeah… the “cat” and the “dog” in this film are hideous. Perhaps they are somewhat justified not using real animals since this is a talking pet movie? But that still doesn’t explain why they looks so low budget terrible. Real bottom of the barrel animal simulations that constantly took me out of the picture (which was a better experience than actually watching the movie, to be honest).

The cat, amusingly, doesn’t really move or slink or pounce much like an actual cat. It’s disconcertingly weirdly bendy in a way cats aren’t. Don’t get me wrong: cats are bendy to be sure – one can pour them into small containers and pretend to bench press them as they splay themselves lengthwise – but whoever animated this felis catus had no idea how they actually move (or how they don’t get stuck in small windows… did I mention real cats are water?)

And the dog wears a diaper the whole time… presumably – in a story sense – to catch a valuable gem he’s eaten… but I suspect it’s so they don’t have to render dog testicles and buttholes. Since they sure talk about sniffing butts and pissing on stuff a lot. Someone should have told them filmmakers have solved the problem of doggy dicks a long time ago… you just don’t animate them. You make the region a gonad-free zone. Problem solved.

Oh jeesh… I’ve banged on for so long I haven’t even gotten to the real crime of this movie. It’s a bargain-basement stupid comedy for very little children who laugh at dogs sniffing asses. It’s an inane cartoon using real humans and fake looking pets that tries desperately to be funny but fails at every over-acted, screeching attempt. Unless you are six years old or an adult who still thinks dogs sniffing asses is hi-larious… in which case maybe this is your Citizen Kane, your Star Wars, your Return of the King, your Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.

But, hey, maybe I shouldn’t be THIS annoyed at a harmdless stupid movie? I mean, like seriously, maybe I should let this garbage go and not write this many words in a pointless takedown of a movie for five year olds? Yeah, probably… but I’m awake, bored, and at a keyboard… and I can type like hell.

Did I mention the film takes place in America but clearly wasn’t filmed there? Noticing the inconsistencies between actual filming locations and where they claimed they were became a more enjoyable past time than watching the film.

For the record, the fake dog and cat get into some peril… kidnapping, cracking ice, almost drowning, and – most disdainfully – getting shot. Which was a sequence that didn’t need to be in the film and actually bothered me. Yeah. Me. This guy who just spend a monumental amount of text sneering at the shitty CGI animals was bothered by one of them getting shot. Not that it mattered because it’s not a real cat and basically shakes it off. Good story, bro.

Cat and Dog – or whatever French name they want to hide under – is a terrible film. A movie that maybe little kids would like and a movie maybe I should let slide. But nah… the piss-poor ugly cat and dog CGI models deserve my disrespect and the bumbling, inane live action “comedy” my disdain.

Score: 55