'Old Dogs' review

A great opportunity to gather family members you clearly think are stupid

By Matt Pais

Posted November 24, 2009

Metromix

Seven years after a one-night marriage, Dan (Robin Williams) learns that he has 7-year-old twins. Significantly increasing the chances for wacky hilarity, Dan elects to watch the kids—with help from Dan's playboy best pal and business partner Charlie (John Travolta)—while Dan's ex (Kelly Preston, the real Mrs. Travolta) serves a two-week jail sentence for trespassing. Really.

The buzz: Director Walt Becker's last collaboration with Travolta (2007's "Wild Hogs") was a massive hit despite being massively terrible. Perhaps Disney's been waiting to release "Old Dogs" (which features a cameo from Bernie Mac, who died Aug. 2008) until audiences will be too focused on their holiday meal to care if a family comedy is actually funny.

The verdict: All of the actors involved (including Matt Dillon, Justin Long, Ann-Margaret and Paolo Costanzo) seem to have collectively placed their sense of self-respect in a bag and tossed it in the toilet. Yet the biggest culprits are Williams and Travolta, who are now so devoid of comic instincts that Becker must rely on reaction shots from Charlie's dog to show that someone is actually trying. On top of lazy gags involving feces and farting, "Old Dogs" also shares "Wild Hogs'" fondness for sprinkling gay panic and racism like comedic salt on a wound that begins wide and only gets wider.

Did you know? A pill mix-up (hysterical, no?) results in Charlie giddily smiling throughout a bereavement group's discussion and single-handedly devouring its pot-luck lunch. That he still wins the favor of one of the group's members will teach young viewers valuable lessons about appropriate behavior.