Space Buddies (2009)

This week's selection combines space travel and dogs, two of my pet (pun intended) peeves. So when the folks at Disney decided to produce a film combining the two, I was baffled. However, after seeing it, I can put all prejudices aside and say that Space Buddies has blasted into the stratosphere of truly great films.

Space Buddies tells the entirely fictitious tale (or would that be tail?) of five dogs, who through a series of wacky mishaps, find themselves traveling to the moon. But once they are there, the adventure has just begun, as a group of dedicated space scientists and a talking weasel must guide the fourlegged dogmanauts back home to Earth.

The story begins with the five charismatic, talking Golden Retrievers tagging along as their young owners visit a space station as part of a school trip. We learn that each of the five dogs has a distinct and wonderful personality. Butterball loves to eat. Buddha is big into meditation. Mud-bud loves to roll around in mud. Rosebud is a fashion maven. B-dog is a hip hop lover who loves to say things like “fo shizzle.” Potential screenwriters should study this film, as it is a textbook example of character development.

Thanks to an unscrupulous employee at the space station, the dogs end up in a spaceship. An un-manned launch is planned that day, and as a result, the five dogs end up in orbit. Along the way they are joined by Sputnik, a Bull Terrier that they pick up at the Russian space station. Thankfully, Sputnik is an experienced space dog who guides the Golden Retrievers, and adds a measure of sanity to the proceedings.

In a particularly touching scene, one of the dogs pays tribute to the recently departed Michael Jackson by doing a moonwalk on the moon. Hopefully Michael loved dogs as much as he loved children and chimpanzees, and witnessed this moving tribute to his greatness prior to his passing.

Speaking of moving scenes, a bowel movement from one of the canines figures prominently in the process of getting the dogs back home. Not enough farting in movies is what I always say. I'm sure NASA has already reviewed the video, and will be implementing the technique in future endeavours. Tang and beans will be the standard diet for future astronauts.

Ever since man allegedly walked on the moon, Hollywood has pumped out a seemingly endless supply of films on the subject. From Apollo 13 to The Right Stuff, these films have all sputtered shortly after the blastoff. Well, you can stop trying Hollywood, the genre has been perfected. Space Buddies is one small ass sniffing for dogs, one giant piss stain on the carpet for dogkind.