If you’re looking for a heartfelt adventure story about a lonely girl and the gigantic creature she befriends, set against a satirical backdrop exploring environmentalism and the genetically modified food industry, you now have two options. Older audiences can stick with Okja from genre-exploding Oscar-winner Bong Joon-ho — but now youngsters can get in on the action too with, er, Clifford The Big Red Dog.
Against the odds, Walt Becker’s live-action tale — adapting the 1960s children’s books by Norman Bridwell, which became a popular pre-school animated show in the early ’00s — hews surprisingly close to that ‘Okja, but, you know, for kids!’ set-up. Here, the lonely girl is Emily Elizabeth (Big Little Lies’ Darby Camp), a recent arrival in NYC who’s bullied at school by rich kids and is desperate for companionship. Instead of a ‘super pig’, she bonds with a ruby-red puppy who — after a stray wish for the pair of them to become “big and strong” together — swiftly blows up into a cutesy canine kaiju. And instead of the Mirando Corporation, the pair find themselves on the run from Lyfegro — a shady biotech organisation attempting to create giant animals, led by the slimy Tieran (Tony Hale on fun, villainous form).
It’s a strange concoction, but there’s something pleasingly old-school about Clifford’s approach — if it doesn’t have Paddington levels of craft or charm (be honest, what else does?), there’s real warmth and intention beyond a mere cash-grab here. Tonally, it feels like a tribute to sweet ’90s dog-antic comedies like Beethoven and the live-action 101 Dalmatians, just with a colossal canine at its core. That means you get all the usual dog-movie antics, this time played out on a comically large scale: Clifford wrecks the apartment! Clifford sniffs a plumber’s butt-crack! Clifford chases Zorbs in the park! And while the CGI isn’t always where it needs to be — mini-Clifford feels floaty and weightless, while mega-Clifford seems to change size from scene to scene — he’s an undeniably cute creation, sure to be a hit with the intended audience.
This is a solidly constructed, energetic family movie — at once formulaic and pleasantly weird.
Around the title character, the film moves swiftly enough to hang together. Emily Elizabeth and fellow nerdy kid Owen (Izaac Wang) make for a sweet duo, Jack Whitehall gives good gurning despite an unconvincing American accent (a confusing choice, given Casey’s sister speaks with an English accent), and the screenplay boasts a solid set of gags. “It’s New York, no-one will notice,” says Casey as they prepare to take the house-sized dog for his first walk — quickly proven to be correct. It presents a diverse and unified vision of the Big Apple too, where community and togetherness is something to be celebrated.
For all that Clifford is prone to on-the-nose cheesiness (“That’s the dog all over Instagram!” gasps a school kid as the bullies are won over) and never answers key questions about how exactly the big red dog squeezes in and out of buildings, this is a solidly constructed, energetic family movie — at once formulaic and pleasantly weird. Where else will you see a deli fight sequence, a rage-infected sheep, and a magical John Cleese in a turquoise waistcoat? Maybe there is a bit of the genre-busting Bong in there, after all.