Shrill, frantic, and hideous to look at, "Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue" isn't just one of the worst animated movies of the year—it's one of the worst movies of the year, period.
I hate to dunk on it like this. "Gracie & Pedro" is clearly meant for very tiny kids and no one else. There's no way actual adults would be expected to watch this. But even as a means of keeping your little ones occupied for an hour and a half, the film from directors Kevin Donovan and Gottfried Roodt is a total failure. There's no transporting sense of wonder, no inspiring lessons to be learned. And young children will undoubtedly be terrified by the movie's grim, rubbery character design, with mouths that never match up with what the characters are saying. (And no, the dialogue has not been dubbed into English from another language.) This is equally true for the talking animals and humans alike. Staring at a blank screen would be preferable.
Let's say you are stuck watching this with your kids, though. You may think to yourself at the outset: How terrible can it be, with a voice cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Danny Trejo, Brooke Shields, and Bill Nighy? But then it doesn't take long to realize that these seasoned actors are barely in it, and even when they are, their voices have been technologically tweaked to such an extent that they're unrecognizable.
Plus, you'll have a hard time getting past the fact that the event that sends the main characters on their road trip adventure is totally contrived and makes zero sense. Absolute adherence to reality certainly isn't a requirement in a talking animal movie, but this is just bizarre.
Gracie (voiced by Claire Alan) is a pampered spaniel with high-maintenance show dog demands. You can tell because she wears a pink bow in her fur. Pedro (Cory Doran) is a wise-cracking, street-smart cat who's always getting into trouble. They fight like ... well, cats and dogs, which consists entirely of trading corny, sitcommy insults. But when the family they live with moves from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, they cram both animals into a tiny crate and force them to fly together in the cargo area.
Seriously? Even the cheapest of low-budget airlines wouldn't allow this sort of arrangement. They couldn't have brought each pet on board in their own individual carrier? And who are these idiot parents who thought this was a good idea? It's probably meant to be funny, seeing these squabbling creatures shoved into a small space and forced to get along, but instead, it's ridiculous and just plain cruel.
Anyway, Gracie and Pedro end up bickering so fitfully that they cause the labyrinthine cargo conveyor belt system to go haywire. They never make it onto the plane and instead must rely on the kindness of strangers to point them toward Utah by bus and train. Some want to help them, like Sarandon's Shades, a rabbit who's part of a magic act heading toward Las Vegas. (And yes, she is wearing sunglasses, hence the name. This is the level of creativity in the screenplay, which somehow took three people to write.) Some want to eat them, like the condor Nighy voices, a dark and predatory force who might frighten the very viewers to whom this film is aimed.
Meanwhile, back in Salt Lake City, daughter Sophie (Bianca Alongi) and her younger brother Gavin, who is mute, understandably freak out at the discovery that their beloved pets are missing. They record a music video to track them down, which goes viral. Sophie's voice is the tinniest and most grating of all, and we hear a lot of her because she's the one with a plan while all the grown-ups around her flounder.
And as if the condor character weren't scary enough, the climactic conclusion occurs at a creepy, abandoned amusement park, where a rickety roller coaster puts the kids' lives in danger. Good times!
If you're looking for an animated movie that's great for all ages and in which animals find themselves in absurd, slapsticky situations, might I recommend any of the delightful and inspired Wallace & Gromit shorts or features, or literally anything else besides this?
