Marmaduke (film)

Plot

Marmaduke (Owen Wilson) is a teenage Great Dane living in rural Kansas with his stepbrother and best friend, a cat named Carlos (George Lopez). His owner, Phil Winslow (Lee Pace), works for Bark Organic dog food. Phil is very strict, from Marmaduke's perspective.

One day, Carlos tells Marmaduke that he overheard Phil saying that they were being transferred to Orange County. They move from Kansas into their new house in California. Phil's boss, Don Twombly (William H. Macy), has the goal of getting Bark Organic into every Petco store in the country. Phil and Don meet at the dog park to discuss Phil's assignment – an ad campaign to win over Petco. There, Marmaduke meets Mazie (Emma Stone), who develops a crush on Marmaduke. He also meets Giuseppe (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a Chinese Crested dog who is afraid of everything, and Raisin (Steve Coogan), a very smart but minute Dachshund.

Later, Marmaduke meets a beautiful Rough Collie named Jezebel (Fergie), whose boyfriend is Bosco (Kiefer Sutherland), a violent Beauceron with two Miniature Pinscher minions named Thunder and Lightning (Damon Wayans, Jr. and Marlon Wayans). Bosco intimidates Marmaduke, who does not want to fight.

Marmaduke and the mutts get together at night and crash a pedigrees-only party thrown by Bosco, only to be scared away by him. Marmaduke asks Mazie to help him get a girl, whom she presumes is herself but is actually Jezebel.

Marmaduke has Carlos pretend to be lost in the dog park, and the two stage a fight in front of all the dogs in order to boost Marmaduke's popularity. Marmaduke then enters a dog surfing contest put together as a promotional stunt by Phil to sway Petco and beats Bosco, who is the reigning dog-surfing champion. They get into a fight, which appalls the Petco executives. As a result, Phil hires a dog trainer named Anton to help him control Marmaduke, albeit with little success at first.

He then takes Jezebel on Mazie's dream date, which the latter watches from afar. While the Winslow family are on Don's boat, Marmaduke throws a party, with most residents of the dog park attending save for Mazie, Giuseppe, and Raisin. Bosco crashes the party and discovers it was Carlos at the dog park. He then exposes Marmaduke, who loses his friends. He is left with no friends and a destroyed house. When the Winslows return (having discovered Phil arranged the stay on Don's boat was so they could work on the Petco pitch) and Phil discovers the house in a wreck, he locks Marmaduke outside for the night. Marmaduke runs away, and leaves Mazie a toy that she had given him earlier. Mazie goes to Marmaduke's house, and Carlos tells her Marmaduke never returned. She then goes looking for him. Marmaduke in the meantime has met Chupadogra, a wise, elderly English Mastiff (Sam Elliott) who is feared throughout Orange County for presumably eating his owner. In reality, he ran away to lead the pack, but they abandoned him. He has spent the time alone in the woods with nothing but a blanket and his old water bowl, which reads "Buster". Buster tells Marmaduke to go home and return to his family while he still has one, and then distracts a dog catcher. Marmaduke leaves, but gets lost.

In the morning, the Winslows discover Marmaduke missing and begin searching for him. Mazie and the family find him at the same time on the streets, but Mazie falls into the subterranean rainwater conduit after the street below her collapses. Marmaduke jumps in after her and Phil tries to retrieve him, as well as the fire department. The fireman saves Mazie, but loses Marmaduke in the raging water. By this time, Phil has been fired for missing the meeting for the last chance with Petco. He then runs to the aqueduct that the conduits lead to and finds Marmaduke in the raging waters. Phil begs Marmaduke to let go of the branch he's holding onto and let the waters carry him to Phil. He reluctantly does, and is saved. Several kids got that on video and put it on YouTube. Since it generates 682,000 hits, Phil is rehired and Bark Organics got Petco. Phil then talks about moving back to Kansas, but the entire Winslow family wants to stay in California. Marmaduke later confronts the pedigrees, saying that differences shouldn't matter, that they're all dogs and should have an equal share of the park. Everyone agrees and turn on Bosco, who leaves, after revealing his fear of bees (which Marmaduke is also afraid of). Meanwhile, Phil and Don begin thinking of new commercials when they ask each other about if the dogs could talk to each other, or even dance.

The finale then shows Marmaduke, Jezebel, Mazie, Giuseppe, Raisin, and Buster, among others, dancing and singing "What I Like About You", which turns out to be the commercial. In the end, Marmaduke and Mazie are dating, Marmaduke and Jezebel are friends, and all is well. That night, Marmaduke then farts in Phil and Debbie's bed as he winks at the camera.

Humans

Animals

Release

Marmaduke was released on June 4, 2010, by 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises to 3,213 theaters in the US. The film earned $3.4 million on opening day, landing in sixth place behind Sex and the City 2, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Killers, Get Him to the Greek, and Shrek Forever After respectively. This was far below the openings of other talking-animal live-action films and a loss for the studio. The film remained in sixth place over the weekend, with $11.6 million earned for a $3,608 average from 3,213 theaters. In its second weekend, it had a 48% decline to just over $6 million and descending to seventh place. The film closed on September 16, 2010, after grossing $33.6 million in the US and an additional $50.1 million overseas for a worldwide total of $83.8 million. Marmaduke was released on August 31, 2010, on DVD and Blu-ray, two and a half months after its release in theaters.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 9% of 99 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 3.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Dull and unfunny, Marmaduke offers family filmgoers little more than another round of talking animals and scatological humor." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 30 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Lopez was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his performance in the film. Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two out of four stars, and wrote in his review, "The moment I saw Marmaduke's big drooling lips moving, I knew I was in trouble." The Radio Times, however, was quite positive, saying "it's all a tad contrived, but young and old alike will get something from it—even if the lip movements take a bit of getting used to."

Marmaduke was nominated at the Teen Choice Awards for Choice Movie: Animated. George Lopez was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his roles in Marmaduke, among others.