Cats & Dogs: Paws Unite! (Subtitled) (U)

Thanks to a truce, relations between cats and dogs remain cordial for the benefit of everyone, including their human owners. The fragile peace is monitored by operatives from an organisation called Furry Animals Rivalry Termination (Fart) using a state-of-the-art covert surveillance system. Arch villain Pablo the parrot hacks into the wireless system to broadcast a frequency that only dogs and cats can hear. Old rivalries spiral out of control, threatening a resumption of hostilities between the species.

LondonNet Film Review
Cats & Dogs: Paws Unite! (U)

Ten years after the release of lacklustre sequel Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore, a long-running interspecies feud threatens to reignite in director Sean McNamara’s family-friendly caper. The animal cast of Cats & Dogs: Paws Unite! repeatedly hit their marks, performing tricks on command such as pushing a big red button on a flashing control panel or crawling along the ground to evade detection. Unfortunately, other aspects of McNamara’s film are in urgent need of house-training including Scott Bindley’s unruly script, which fails to contrive a ramshackle plot capable of filling a meagre 84 minutes…

The sophistication of humour is pitched low in an opening history lesson, which introduces a secret organisation with the unwieldly title of Furry Animals Rivalry Termination as global peacekeepers of the pet world. Rather than waiting for the audience to spot the acronym, critters loudly snigger the word FART because nothing is funnier than a bodily function. The script’s central sermon – stop staring at your mobile phone screen and enjoy invigorating exercise with a pet – is preached loud and clear by adorable animals including a risk-averse Collie, who lives by the motto “boring is good”. Judged on that basis, the third chapter of the franchise is good.

For around 15,000 years, cats and dogs have been spitting fur balls in each other’s direction. A fragile truce between the species is closely monitored by four-legged operatives from FART. Roger the dog (voiced by Max Greenfield) and Gwen the cat (Melissa Rauch) are risk assessment analysts from the Seattle division commanded by Chief Schnauzer (Noel Johansen). The two pets watch CCTV footage of their stomping ground when their respective human owners, Max (Callum Seagram Airlie) and Zoe (Sarah Giles), are at school.

The FART surveillance network is hacked by “the most nefarious villain the world has ever seen” – a cockatoo named Pablo (George Lopez), who is tired of being left on the perch while cute kitties and puppies quickly find homes. Aided by his tegu lizard hench-reptile Zeke (Paul Dobson), the megalomaniacal bird forms Pets with Out of the Ordinary Pedigree (POOP) and broadcasts a discordant frequency that only cats and dogs can hear. Chief Schnauzer orders Roger and Gwen to avert pet-mageddon flanked by two untrained pooches in their building, Old Ed (Garry Chalk) and Rottweiler enforcer Duke (Michael Daingerfield).

Cats & Dogs: Paws Unite! is unlikely to wag the tail of anyone old enough to care responsibly for a pet. Jeopardy and suspense are strangers to the screen and a romantic subplot involving Airlie and Giles’ air-brushed teens is unnecessary padding. No animals were harmed in the making of a fleetingly violent final showdown, which is as much of a relief as the brisk running time.

– Kim Hu