Movies frequently ask us to believe in the impossible. Firehouse Dog is a movie so impossible that I began to question if kids would actually be dumb enough to buy it. The ads want you to believe that this is your standard boy and his dog story, but it also wants to be so much more. It's also a lame parody of Hollywood, a father and son bonding movie, a raunchy comedy for kids with plenty of toilet humor, and a serious mystery drama concerning a deadly arsonist who is terrorizing the city. So many different plots, each one with their own separate tone, are thrown into the story that I don't think the filmmakers even knew what kind of movie they were trying to make. Director Todd Holland tries to throw a little bit of everything into the pot, and the end result is a nasty concoction that will appeal to only the youngest of children, provided they can sit still long enough through the film's nearly two hour running time.

The film centers on a pampered canine named Rexxx, who is the biggest star in Hollywood. His trailer is filled with posters advertising his past hits such as Jurassic Bark and The Fast and the Furriest (Ho, ho). He's even got poodle groupies, which made me wonder if he's got any little illegitimate puppies running around. While filming a parachute stunt for his latest film, something goes wrong, and Rexxx finds himself alone and stranded in a small town. It's there that he befriends a sad preteen boy named Shane (Josh Hutcherson from Bridge to Terabithia), who is acting out in rebellious ways because his beloved Uncle was killed in a fire months ago, and his workaholic firefighter father (Bruce Greenwood) is too preoccupied trying to save his little firehouse from getting bought out by some greedy developers. Shane and Rexxx get off on the wrong foot initially, but when the kid discovers the mutt can do some amazing stunts like ride a skateboard, they slowly begin to bond. Everyone at the firehouse bonds with the dog as well, and before long he's named the official mascot. Eventually Shane and his four-legged friend stumble upon an arson plot that may have resulted in the death of the kid's Uncle, and may result in many more unless they can think of a way to stop whoever is responsible and expose their scheme.

Firehouse Dog veers wildly from scene to scene, changing its tone and mood so frequently that audience members are likely to get whiplashed. One second, we'll be watching Shane and his dad having a heartfelt dramatic talk about the day the Uncle died, and mere minutes later, we'll get a gross-out gag of the dog doing his dirty business in a pot of beef stew. The dog itself is cute enough, but never really plays any major role in the story. He's just there to distract us from the banality of the plot itself. With the use of CG, the dog slides down fire poles, rides a skateboard, and gives human-like face expressions as if it could understand English. Actually, the dog supposedly does understand the plot at least, as it is able to identify the arsonist behind the fires without any help at all. I guess it read the script in advance. The dog can clean up an entire room by itself by picking up the items thrown about, and putting them away. He even is able to make the bed and tuck in the sheets. I'm sure the filmmaker's thought it'd be cute, but I couldn't stop thinking about how I would not want a dog putting everything I own into its mouth. Dogs have done incredible things in movies in the past, but at least they usually seemed like something a dog could actually do with training. With Rexxx, I kept on waiting for a scene where we would see the dog sitting in front of a piano, and he'd start performing symphonies. I don't exactly expect realism when I see a movie like this, but I at least want to see a real dog doing incredible things, not a real dog being assisted by special effects.

But in a way, I was glad Rexxx was there. He at least was able to hold my interest, even if I could have done with less shots of him farting while he sleeps. The human actors seem to know that we're here for the dog, so they give very little in their performances. Everyone performs serviceably enough, but no one is given anything to do. Shane is your typical angst-filled kid who likes to skip school so he can skateboard around the town. We're supposed to feel sorry for him, but we never get a true glimpse into his relationship with this Uncle of his, or why it hit him so hard. His relationship with his father comes out a little bit better, as they at least get to have scenes where they talk about their relationship. But these scenes are too serious and dramatic to appear in the same movie with a skateboarding dog who farts and belches on cue. They feel like they belong in an entirely different film. The small group of firefighters who act as Shane's human friends are mainly used for comic foils, or to stand in the background and be amazed by Rexxx's acts. None of them even seem quite impressed by the dog's acts as they should be. Also, ask yourself this. Don't you find it suspicious that this dog is supposedly a media darling who is everywhere, yet when they find out that Rexxx is actually a Hollywood celebrity, everyone acts as if they've never even heard of him? I would think news of a dog who is popular enough to have his own fragrance line (with the scent of meat and butt-crack, we are told) would have traveled even as far as whatever town this movie is set in.

Because Firehouse Dog can never settle on a set tone, it suffers. All I wanted was a cute dog movie that could make me smile. But, it can't be happy with that and has to throw in at least five different subplots to distract us from the dog. It tries to engage us with a mystery plot, although the identity of the arsonist is blatantly obvious the second the character walks onto the screen. There's a hint at a possible romance blossoming between Shane and a young girl at school who is the daughter of another firefighter, but this plot goes nowhere. The opening moments seem to want to be a biting parody of Hollywood celebrity, but the jokes are forced and downright idiotic. None of the movies it tries to be work, so the filmmakers would have been better off just narrowing it down. I highly doubt kids will even be interested in arson plots, government cover ups and political corruption. Maybe they'll like Josh Hutcherson's performance. He is one of the more natural child actors working today, so he's pretty easy to relate to. But, with a movie called Firehouse Dog, we expect more from the pooch.
I'm usually a sentimental sucker for animal films, but this movie certainly won't be remembered by me anytime soon. It's too top-heavy with plot and too forced to leave much of an impression. The most honest moment of the film comes during the end credits, which show actual Polaroids of dogs owned by the cast and crew who worked on the film. After nearly two hours of seeing a dog figure out the plot by itself and clean houses, it was nice to look at some real canines. Firehouse Dog is contrived, lame, and artificial from start to finish. The Benji movies I grew up with as a child weren't the pinnacle of filmmaking, but at least the four-legged star made us feel. All Rexxx made me do was wonder how the filmmakers pulled off the special effects.

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