Tim Allen, you either love him, loathe him or are generally indifferent to him. As for me, I tend to fall on the indifferent side. I loved “Galaxy Quest,” but more for the supporting characters than his performance and the same goes for “Big Trouble.” As long as he wasn’t grunting like a caveman and doing the same “make it more powerful” schtick that he did each week for “Home Improvement,” I gave him a pass. Allen is the main guy, or the “alpha dog” if you will, in “The Shaggy Dog,” and he gives a fairly humorous performance, outshining most of the supporting cast.

The plot of this film focuses on a shaggy dog living in Tibet that is rumored to be over 300 years old. A pharmaceutical firm in California wants the secret to the dog’s longevity, so they kidnap him and run tests on him. Allen plays the assistant district attorney and he is prosecuting a science teacher for breaking into the lab and starting a fire. The teacher proclaims his innocence and states that the lab performs tests on animals. Allen’s daughter, an aspiring animal rights activist, takes the dog in when he escapes and brings him home. The dog bites Allen’s character and that’s when things get hairy.

You see, Allen hasn’t been the best husband or dad recently and it is when he turns into a dog and sees the world through his eyes that he learns how others perceive him. While learning the truth behind the nefarious goings-on at the lab, he also figures out what he needs to do to become a better man.

Testing on animals and marital problems may not be the first thing that come to mind when one thinks of Disney films but luckily there is a lot of rollicking humor when Allen becomes the dog or behaves like him. He chases cats, eats his food face first, catches frisbees with his mouth, etc. The show is almost stolen by the other animals that have taken on canine attributes that show up in the third act, especially a cobra with a dog tongue and tail and a bullfrog with a bulldog face.

While Kristen Davis and the two actors playing Allen’s kids don’t have much to do in the film, Danny Glover, Robert Downey Jr., Jane Curtin and Phillip Baker Hall help raise the film up to a higher standard. “The Shaggy Dog” is a worthy entry into the Disney canon and is worth a viewing.

**1/2

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