The A Dog's Cinematic Universe has a fan in my family

My son may not be old enough for the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- according to his parents, anyway -- but he's not too old for the A Dog's Cinematic Universe.

We're talking about my eight-year-old, not my five-year-old.

But before we get into that, you may be asking what the hell I'm talking about.

You may recognize a similarity in the poster art between A Dog's Way Home, a 2019 release, and the 2017 movie A Dog's Purpose that I wrote about here. That's because they're both based on material by writer W. Bruce Cameron, whose book A Dog's Purpose spent 19 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and turned into that successful movie. However, the actual sequel to that book is called A Dog's Journey, and that is also becoming a movie, to be released later this year.

The interesting thing about the (so far) three films in this "cinematic universe" is that they are not even released by the same studio. The two actual adaptations of those books are being released by Universal (alongside a host of lesser production companies), while A Dog's Journey is a Sony release. I don't understand how it all works. Cameron is the common thread.

Never in a million years did I imagine I'd be sitting in an actual theater watching this movie, and that it if I were, it would be my older son initiating it, rather than my younger. But this is a good reminder of my personal creed as a critic, which is to see samples of every genre aimed at every demographic. That's the truly democratic way to review films, and modern versions of Lassie are not immune from this philosophy.

The potential interest in A Dog's Journey was first broached by my son a month or two ago, when he saw ads for it in a free magazine he got featuring pop culture options for children. I kind of laughed it off at the time. This is a kid who claims to hate Toy Story and Finding Nemo, among others. When push came to shove, he'd never actually want to watch a talking dog movie. (For the record, it's a thinking dog movie, not a talking dog movie, as we ever only hear the dog's thoughts. But that's a pretty unimportant distinction in the type of appeal it would have, and to whom.)

The issue likely wouldn't have been revisited, except that my younger son slept over at his aunt's Sunday night (we're in the midst of a three-day weekend), and the older son said he wanted to go to a movie at night as a way of recognizing the novelty of his little brother not being around.

I didn't think it would transpire because the options right now are pretty limited. We haven't given him the approval for movies like Captain Marvel yet, and besides, I saw that on Thursday night, as you know. The actual kids movies are held back for a week or two more, in anticipation of opening in time for the year's first school holidays, which begin on April 5th. The second Lego Movie kind of kicks off that season when it opens on March 21st.

But I did my due diligence and checked what was playing at The Sun in Yarraville, my theater of choice when all else is equal. And sure enough, the movie he'd said he wanted to see, about a talking/thinking dog, was playing at 6:40, pretty much the perfect time to get him home for a reasonable bedtime.

I almost nixed it by laughing at him when he responded so quickly in the affirmative. I made a deft save, saying I laughed at the speed of his response and not his interest in the movie, though that wasn't really true. My laugh was a bit more complicated than that, though. My laugh was not about this movie in a vacuum, it was about it compared to some of the Pixar classics he scoffs at. "You have an actual disdain for some of the great animated features of all time, but you want to go see a talking dog movie?"

I'm glad I was able to convince him of the sincerity of my interest, because what parent wouldn't be delighted to have an eight-year-old who genuinely wants to see a talking dog movie? In an era where all we do is bemoan how quickly are children are growing up, it's heartening to see one who wants to watch what we might consider the epitome of wholesome entertainment. And who cares if it's corny? Corny I can live with.

I don't usually have to worry about leaving movies because he's scared anymore, but I thought I might have to worry about boredom prompting an early departure from this one. But he was really into it, obviously, and the only hesitation I caught in him declaring his affection for it was a sidelong glance to judge my own thoughts on it. I think he wants to embrace something like this, but maybe not if his dad doesn't also want to embrace it.

Well, I'm glad to report that I do embrace A Dog's Way Home. Sure, there's something hopelessly square and dated feeling about a movie like this. There's a part of me that feels like Babe should have put an end to movies that didn't realistically sync up the dialogue to the animals' mouths, and that was 24 years ago. Of course, these are only thinking animals, and you only hear the thoughts of the main one anyway, but the point is, the way Babe technologically eclipsed its forbears should have rendered them permanently obsolete.

But A Dog's Way Home has bits that make it feel current as well. For one, it relies on digital technology in a number of places, as when the dog has to interact with a baby cougar who grows up to become an adult cougar. You can't get a dog to chase a squirrel on camera unless the squirrel is digital, nor can you get a pack of wolves to close in on a dog. I could of course tell that these were digital, but I don't think my son could. I didn't ask him, anyway.

But what really heartened me about the movie is its social progressiveness. I kind of feel like a movie like this is designed to extract most of its dollars from middle America, but that doesn't mean that conservative politics factor in. Not only are there two interracial relationships in the movie -- one between a white man and a black woman and one between a black woman and a Mexican man -- but there's also a Native American police chief. I'm saving the best for last though. At one point the dog comes into the possession of a gay couple. The two men don't kiss or anything, but I think even a kid would probably guess they're gay. It probably wasn't necessary, which is all the more reason it was really nice to see.

I don't think I'm going to rush out and complete my A Dog's Cinematic Universe viewings, but if my son wants me to take him to A Dog's Journey later this year, I certain won't involuntarily scoff at the suggestion.