Marmaduke (film)

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Marmaduke

Theatrical poster
Directed by Tom Dey
Produced by John Davis
Written by Tim Rasmussen
Vince Di Meglio
Based on Marmaduke 
by Brad Anderson
Phil Leeming
Starring Owen Wilson
Lee Pace
Judy Greer
William H. Macy
Steve Coogan
Sam Elliott
Fergie
George Lopez
Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Emma Stone
Kiefer Sutherland
Marlon Wayans
Music by Christopher Lennertz
Cinematography Greg Gardiner
Editing by Don Zimmerman
Studio Regency Enterprises
Davis Entertainment
United Feature Syndicate
Dune Entertainment
Intrigue Film
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • June 4, 2010 (2010-06-04) (United States)
  • May 27, 2010 (2010-05-27) (Argentina)
Running time 87 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $50 million[1]
Box office $83,761,844[2]

Marmaduke is a 2010 American live action film adaptation of Brad Anderson's comic strip of the same name. The film centers on a rural Kansas family and their pets—a Great Dane named Marmaduke (voiced by Owen Wilson) and a Balinese cat named Carlos (voiced by George Lopez)—as the family relocates to California. The film was released on June 4, 2010 and was met with largely negative reviews.

Plot

Marmaduke is a Great Dane living in rural Kansas with a cat named Carlos. His owner, Phil (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 a beautiful Rough Collie named Jezebel (Fergie), whose boyfriend is Bosco (Kiefer Sutherland), a controlling and 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 then 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 highly intelligent but decidedly minute Dachshund. They get together at night and crash a pedigrees-only party thrown by Bosco, only to be scared away by Bosco. 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 other dogs in order to boost Marmaduke's perceived toughness. Marmaduke then enters a dog surfing contest put together as a promotional stunt by Phil to sway Petco and beats Bosco, who is an established dog-surfing champion. They get into a fight, which appalls the Petco executives.

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 Mazie, Giuseppe and Raisin. Bosco crashes the party and discovers it was Carlos at the dog park. He then exposes Marmaduke, who loses his pedigree friends. He is left with no friends and a destroyed house. When 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 killing 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/Chupadogra 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 family discover him 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. He 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 get that on video and put it on YouTube. Since it generates almost 700,000 hits, Phil is rehired. Phil then talks about moving back to Kansas, but the entire 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, the YouTube video also wins the company the Petco deal. He 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. Marmaduke then farts in the beds as he winks at the camera.

Cast

Live-action actors

Voice actors

Release and reception

The film was released on June 4, 2010 by 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises to 3,213 theaters nationwide. It had been released in Venezuela a week earlier, on May 28.

Marmaduke has been rated PG by the MPAA for "some rude humor and mild language".

Marmaduke was released on August 31, 2010 on DVD and Blu-ray, two and a half months after its release in theaters.[3]

Critical reception

The film has been universally panned by critics. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that only 9% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 96 reviews, with an average score of 4.3/10.[4] The critical consensus is: "Dull and unfunny, Marmaduke offers family filmgoers little more than another round of talking animals and scatological humor."[5] Another review aggregate, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized score between 0–100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 30 based on 22 reviews.[6] 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."[7] 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." [8]

Box office

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 disappointment 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.[9] In its second weekend, it had a 48% decline to just over $6 million and descending to seventh place.[10] The film closed on September 16, 2010 after grossing $33,644,788 domestically and an additional $50,117,056 overseas for a worldwide total of $83,761,844.

Soundtrack

Five tracks were confirmed for the film: "California" by Phantom Planet, Bounce Back by Miss Eighty 6 featuring Early Earl, "California Love" by 2Pac featuring Dr. Dre and Roger Troutman, "Fire Burning" by Sean Kingston, and "What I Like About You" by The Romantics.

References

  1. ↑ Fritz, Ben (June 3, 2010). "Movie projector: 'Get Him to the Bering Sea' and 'Murderers' aiming for No. 2 against Mclovin: the true story". Los Angeles Times (Tribune Company). Retrieved June 4, 2010. "The picture cost Fox and partner New Regency Pictures about $50 million to make." 
  2. ↑ "Marmaduke (2010)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2010-07-31. 
  3. ↑ DVD News: Marmaduke on Blu-ray and DVD August 31. FusedFilm.com (2010-08-03). Retrieved on 2011-01-07.
  4. ↑ "Rotten Tomatoes". Retrieved 2010-09-05. 
  5. ↑ "Marmaduke Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster, Inc. Retrieved 2010-06-13. 
  6. ↑ "Marmaduke reviews at Metacritic.com". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2010-06-13. 
  7. ↑ Ebert, Roger (2010-06-02). "Marmaduke :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews". rogerbert.com. Sun-Times Media Group. 
  8. ↑ The Radio Times (2010-08-25). "Marmaduke film review — Radio Times". radiotimes.com. Radio Times. 
  9. ↑ "Weekend Box Office Results for June 4–6, 2010". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. 
  10. ↑ "Marmaduke (2010) – Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. 

External links

Films directed by Tom Dey
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