Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore is a 2010 family action comedy film, directed by Brad Peyton. The film stars Chris O'Donnell and Jack McBrayer. The film also stars the voices of James Marsden, Nick Nolte, Christina Applegate, Katt Williams, Bette Midler, and Neil Patrick Harris. The film is a sequel to the 2001 film Cats & Dogs and was released on July 30, 2010. It received extremely negative reviews from film critics.
Plot[]
At a satellite base in Northern Germany, a worker named Freidrich (Fred Armisen), who is delivering secret codes finds a Cocker Spaniel puppy outside his office but the dog turns out to be Kitty Galore (voiced by Bette Midler), an evil female hairless Sphynx cat, in disguise. Freidrich's bloodhound Rex turns out to be a dog agent and reports to HQ.
In San Francisco, meanwhile, at a car dealership, the mascot Crazy Carlito (Paul Rodriguez) goes a bit too crazy and plans to blow up the dealership building with people inside it. The cops arrive, and a police officer named Shane Larson (Chris O' Donnell) and his police dog Diggs (voiced by James Marsden) go to stop Carlito. Diggs sneaks up behind Carlito and bites him, causing him to drop the remote control he was using to blow up the building. Diggs catches the remote control in his mouth but accidentally presses the button with his teeth, causing the explosives on the building to detonate. The people in the building escape and Carlito is arrested. Butch, an Anatolian Shepherd (voiced by Nick Nolte) and Lou, (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) now a fully grown Beagle and the head of D.O.G. HQ, watch Diggs blowing up the car dealership. Lou wants to recruit Diggs as an agent, but Butch disagrees. Lou tells Butch that because Diggs is trained and he hates cats he is exactly the thing they need to defeat Kitty Galore.
Diggs, meanwhile, is locked up in the kennels by Shane because of the risk of Diggs causing any more incidents. When Shane goes away, Butch comes in through the floor and explains to Diggs Lou's idea to recruit him as an agent and takes him to D.O.G. HQ. After tracking down a pigeon named Seamus with valuable information, Diggs and Butch meet a M.E.O.W.S. (Mousers Enforcing Our World's Safety) agent named Catherine (voiced by Christina Applegate) who was after Seamus for the same reason the dogs were. Catherine reveals to Diggs that Kitty Galore was a former M.E.O.W.S. agent named Ivana Clawyu who, while on a mission at a cosmetics factory, was chased by a guard dog and fell into a vat of hair removal gel, causing her to lose all her fur. Unrecognized and humiliated by her fellow agents, Kitty left M.E.O.W.S. and returned to her human home only to be kicked out. Afterward, she vows revenge on humans and dogs.
After bringing Catherine to HQ, Lou and Tab Lazenby (voiced by Roger Moore), the head of M.E.O.W.S, form an alliance to take down Kitty Galore much to Diggs's dismay. Diggs was jealous of Catherine for having better gadgets while he got nothing. At a cat lady's home, they discover the middle-cat who has been sending parts of stolen technology to Kitty using other pigeons that work for her. The team's attempt to eavesdrop fails when Diggs gives away their position and tries to attack the middle-cat, who then attempts to drown them in cat litter; due to some quick thinking they eventually manage to escape. Afterwards, they interrogate the middle-cat as to Kitty's whereabouts, but he claims that he doesn't know where she is because the pigeon couriers are flying the stolen technology to a secret location.
After talking to Mr Tinkles (voiced by Sean Hayes) who is imprisoned in Alcatraz, two mercenaries named Angus and Duncan MacDougall (voiced by Michael Beattie and Jeff Bennett) respectively attempt to assassinate Seamus on the boat returning from the prison. Diggs subdues Angus and accidentally throws him overboard. After getting fed up with Diggs ruining the mission, Butch votes him off the team and leaves with Seamus.
Catherine takes Diggs to her home; she learns that the reason why Diggs never follows orders is because his past experiences have caused him to believe that he cannot trust anyone except himself, which led to him spending the majority of his life in kennels. She tells Diggs if he continues to think in this way, no one will able to help him. With that said, Diggs realizes how unruly he has been. Catherine takes Diggs to M.E.O.W.S. HQ, where they learn that Kitty is hiding at a fairground with her new master, an amateur magician named Chuck the Magnificent (Jack McBrayer).
Not long after arriving, Diggs and Catherine are captured by Kitty Galore and her henchcat, Paws. Butch and Seamus are alerted of Diggs and Catherine's capture. Kitty reveals to Diggs and Catherine that she plots to transmit "The Call of the Wild" via an orbiting satellite which only dogs can hear through televisions, radios and cellphones to cause them to act hostile towards their humans. They will then be left alone and unwanted in kennels. Diggs and Catherine however escape and meet up with Butch and Seamus. Kitty uses the roof of the fairground's flying swings ride for a satellite dish. Diggs, Butch, Catherine and Seamus arrive. Seamus presses a red button, thinking it is a shutdown button, but it instead loads the "Call of the Wild" signal. Dogs around the world start acting insane in their homes. Paws battles them, revealing he is a robot in the process. Diggs tricks Paws into biting the wires, destroying the satellite. Kitty's pet mouse, Scrumptious, fed up with Kitty's abuse towards him, fires her away. Kitty lands in the magician's hat with the humans thinking it was a stunt, while Diggs and the others escape.
After the mission, Diggs goes to live with Shane before coming to H.Q. to learn that Mr. Tinkles has escaped from prison with the middlecat (aka Calico) and hacked their systems, so Diggs, Butch, Seamus, and Catherine go to stop him. In post credit-scene, Mr. Tinkles is sitting on a chair in the beach saying to the audience that why they look to him.
Cast[]
- Chris O'Donnell as Shane Larson, a police officer who wants to adopt Diggs; however, the police will not allow it.
- Jack McBrayer as Chuck, Kitty's new owner and an aspiring but scatterbrained amateur magician.
- Fred Armisen as Freidrich (bit-part), a German worker who first finds Kitty Galore (disguised as a puppy) in a dumpster outside.
- Paul Rodriguez as Crazy Carlito (bit-part), the mad bomber
- Kiernan Shipka as Little Girl, a young girl who makes a bit-part appearance when Diggs, Butch, Catherine, and Seamus are in the park. She is scared away by Seamus talking in front of her. She reappears on the ferry and at the fairground (both instances seeing Duncan talking and Kitty pleading for help respectively).
Voice cast[]
- James Marsden as Diggs, an arrogant, dimwitted, rebellious and egotistical German Shepherd who becomes an agent of D.O.G.
- Nick Nolte as Butch, a gruff-voiced Anatolian Shephard dog. Nolte replaced Alec Baldwin in this movie.
- Christina Applegate as Catherine (Agent 47 at M.E.O.W.S.), a female Russian Blue cat, who becomes Diggs' partner.
- Katt Williams as Seamus, a dim-witted, clumsy carrier pigeon.
- Bette Midler as Kitty Galore, formerly a M.E.O.W.S. agent named Ivana Clawyu.
- Neil Patrick Harris as Lou, who is now an adult beagle and the head official of D.O.G. HQ. Harris replaced Tobey Maguire in this movie.
- Sean Hayes as Mr. Tinkles, a Persian who is detained on Alcatraz Island.
- Wallace Shawn as Calico, an Exotic Shorthair who works for Mr. Tinkles. Wallace Shawn replaced Jon Lovitz in this movie.
- Roger Moore as Tab Lazenby, the head of M.E.O.W.S. HQ
- Joe Pantoliano as Peek, a Chinese Crested. He is the tech specialist and head of Covert Ops at D.O.G. HQ.
- Michael Clarke Duncan as Sam, an Old English Sheepdog.
- Elizabeth Daily as Scrumptious, Kitty's pet albino mouse.
- Phil LaMarr as Paws,a robotic Maine Coon with metal teeth who works for Kitty.
- J.K. Simmons as Gruff K-9
- Carlos Alazraqui as Cat Gunner
- Michael Beattie as Angus MacDougall
- Jeff Bennett as Duncan MacDougall
- Bonnie Cahoon as Dog PA
- Grey DeLisle as Security English Bulldog
- Roger Jackson as Fat Cat Inmate
- Bumper Robinson as Cool Cat / Dog Killa / Slim
- André Sogliuzzo as Snobby K-9
- Rick D. Wasserman as Rocky
- Karen Strassman as French Poodle (uncredited)
Reception[]
Box office[]
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore earned $4,225,000 on opening day, and $12,279,363 on its opening weekend reaching #5 at the box office and having a $3,314 average from a very wide 3,705 theaters. In its second weekend, its drop was very similar to the first movie, retreating 44% to $6,902,116 to 7th place and lifting its total to $26,428,266 in 2 weeks. It held better in its third weekend, dropping 39% to $4,190,426 and remaining in the Top 10. The film closed on October 21, 2010 after 84 days of release, earning $43,585,753 domestically. Produced on an $85 million budget, the movie is considered a huge box office bomb, as it grossed less than half of the first Cats & Dogs, but it did manage to do better business than fellow summer talking animal competition Marmaduke. It earned an additional $69 million overseas for a worldwide total of $112.5 million.
During its initial American theatre release, the film was preceded by the new 3D animated short film titled Coyote Falls with Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.[2]
Critical response[]
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore received almost universally negative reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 14% of 94 critics have given the film positive reviews, with an average score of 3.6/10.[3] The critical consensus is: "Dull and unfunny, this inexplicable sequel offers little more than the spectacle of digitally rendered talking animals with celebrity voices."[3] Another review aggregate, Metacritic, calculated a score of 30/100 based on 22 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[4]
Joe Leydon of Variety wrote a positive-leaning review towards the film which reads "Nine years after Cats & Dogs fetched more than $200 million worldwide with its comic take on interspecies animosity, Warners is unleashing Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, a faster, funnier follow-up in which CGI-enhanced canines and felines effect a temporary truce to combat a common enemy."[5] Critics cited the plot as recycled. Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club negatively reviewed the film's plot saying "it’s still about a feline plot for world domination, and the slobbering secret agents who stand in the way."[6]
The film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for "Worst Eye-Gouging Misuse of 3D", but it lost to The Last Airbender.
References to James Bond[]
- Kitty Galore is a parody of the Bond girl Pussy Galore.[7][not in citation given]
- Paws is a parody of Jaws, complete with metal teeth.
- The opening sequence is a parody of the James Bond title sequence, which has become a series staple. The sequence includes references to the sequences for GoldenEyeand Tomorrow Never Dies, as well as the earlier Bond films.
- Equally, the film's theme song is longtime Bond dame Shirley Bassey's cover of "Get the Party Started".
- Tab Lazenby (a reference to George Lazenby) is voiced by Roger Moore. Moore played the role of James Bond seven times.
- Kitty has an albino mouse named Scrumptious, a reference to the white cat held by Ernst Stavro Blofeld.