Sometimes you scrape the bottom of the barrel and find something that’s not as bad as you thought. I mean, I’m being super charitable here… this is a pretty mediocre movie but I kind of also found it inoffensive enough.

I read the Clifford books as a kid. Can’t remember a thing about them except, you know, a big red dog. So when I saw the posters and the standee for this flick at the theater, I wondered to myself if Clifford always looked like he was drenched in the blood of his enemies. Or if
they had used the wrong shade of red or if just by making a big red dog in 3D instead of flat 2D artwork, that automatically made him a hellhound.

I don’t think the animal looked as bad as all that in the actual film. Don’t get me wrong… it’s not what I’d call remotely the best CGI fur creature that ever crawled out of an animation deck. Sometimes it looks ok, sometimes not, and the film’s idea of what a puppy looks like is… curious. But I guess Clifford didn’t look like a child’s worst nightmare and should we expect graphical fidelity from a movie called Clifford the Big Red Dog?

I think kids might legit enjoy it and I wouldn’t bemoan the future of humanity if they did. I mean… I’ve seen far worse kids flicks that weren’t the bottom of the barrel… they were buried six feet under it. This is tolerable. How’s that for high praise?

It’s still a pretty basic, not very good flick. But I’m also not the target audience and they weren’t creating something to feed on the nostalgia of someone who read the books. Fair enough. My time was wasted but, generally speaking, it could have been worse.

Score: 69