WEB EXCLUSIVE

From Tom and Jerry’s recent live action remake to Disney’s initiative to remake most of their classic animated films, every lovable character has been coming to life. With every studio trying to hop on the trend of  remakes, it’s not a surprise that the beloved big red dog was the newest addition to the trend. 

Clifford the Big Red Dog started as a book series about the shenanigans the big dog and child owner, Emily went through. The premise allowed for many other adaptations such as a successful t.v. show and some games. Though there isn’t a lot of lore or content from the children’s series to make a movie; it leads into a creative way to bring the iconic character into new adventures. 

As many have suspected, the movie fails to do the franchise any justice. The many changes that could’ve brought the movie to be an enjoyable unique watch is what brought the downfall to the film. The two biggest problems of the film are the horrible CGI and the storyline.

The horrid CGI used to animate the dog in the real-life setting of New York City makes the movie unbearable to watch. From a viewer’s standpoint, it’s just an enlarged puppy that was colored to be red which is more unsettling than the adorable puppy he is supposed to be. However, it’s the least of the issues this film holds as an adaptation. 

Another issue this film holds is the storyline itself. As previously mentioned, there isn’t much to follow in the children book series but the movie creates a whole new weird story to fill the  whole 96 minutes. The addition of an evil scientist makes the story feel forced and feels almost a repeat of recent kid movies. 

The movie is an average kid movie based on a classic series but with the generic additions of kid movies of today. The addition of the CGI makes the movie fit the trend of live actions but yet it doesn’t bring the sense of child-like joy the animated show or books brought. That same sense of joy was lost when the storyline was changed to fit the generic tropes.