Despite the fact I didn’t laugh once, despite the fact the movie is super derivative of “other” films, and despite the fact the art and animation is pretty mid-tier… I didn’t hate this movie. I didn’t particularly like it either… but there’s something “not bad” about it. I mean, I wasn’t bored and that’s something. I wasn’t particularly entertained either.

Somehow this film is not a rip-off of Kung-Fu Panda, which I fully expected. No, it’s an actually a rip-off (or animated remake, if I’m being polite) of Blazing Saddles.

Yes. Blazing Saddles.

So Imperial Japan is full of super racist cats… they really hate dogs. In order to sabotage the nearby town, an evil cat lord hires a dog to be the town’s next samurai. The townsfolk are horrified… but the dog persists and discovers a drunken (on catnip) former samurai in his office and, together, they must save the town.

So, yeah, this is a knowing Blazing Saddles right down to the “mayor” (i.e. the shogun) being played by Mel Brooks himself. And the scene where the dog walks into town as a lookout sees him and tries to warn the others that the new samurai is a <bong> (as someone hits a gong). There are other things like a sumo cat (not named Mongo) and a bean farting scene.

The samurai dog is played decently by Michael Cera who is joined by Michelle Yeoh, George Takei and a few other name-brand actors. The drunken ex-samurai cat is played by Samuel L. Jackson. Who makes at least one direct Star Wars reference… not to mention a bunch of other in-jokes (his name is Jimbo which HAS to be a reference to Yojimbo).

In fact, the jokes are mostly bad puns and most of those are anachronistic gags about tweets and cars. Or they are knowing references to movie clichés and the flick’s own 85 minute runtime. I didn’t laugh at a single one but I was kind of amused at how most of them are really meant for adults who have to sit through this crap.

I was totally expecting to give this movie a terrible review. But I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that it ain’t that bad. It’s certainly not particularly good and it has a lot of problems, but it somehow didn’t bore me and the constant puns, in-jokes, and Blazing Saddles references actually kept me interested.

Should you see it? Probably not.

Score: 71