Awful, insane, and just hard to watch, “Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue” is not only one of the worst animated films of the year, it’s one of the worst films of the year full stop.
I do not want to be so harsh. Yes, “Gracie and Pedro” does skews toward the very young kids and that’s it. I can’t imagine adults would be asked to view this. But even as a way to entertain your kids for 90 minutes, the Kevin Donovan and Gottfried Roodt directed film fails. There is no sense of magic or wonderment to make one get lost in the experience. And young kids are sure to be creeped out by the look of the movie with its rubbery faces, the mouths of which never seem to move in sync with what the character is attempting to say. (The answer to this question is no, the audio has not been altered to speak in English after being translated from another source.) The same goes for the animals as well as the humans. The image on the screen wouldn’t do, it’s sympathizing with the pain of being devoid of a picture.
At the very beginning you are probably asking yourself this question: How bad could it possibly get, considering there is an incredible voice cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Danny Trejo, Brooke Shields, Bill Nighy? This impression does not last long as one comes to understand the most seasoned actors are hardly featured in the movie and when they are, their voices have been processed so much that they are nigh on indistinguishable.
The way you’re supposed to work out is by noting that the actual event that activates the channel characters and takes them on a road trip adventure is absurd and completely unconvincing. Complete fidelity to real life isn’t exactly a must in a movie about talking animals but this is simply nonsensical.
Gracie (brought to life by Claire Alan) is a selfish, show dog like spaniel who demands all possible attention always. You can tell she is a show-dog since she has a pink bow placed on her fur. Pedro (Cory Doran) is also a cat, but a smart aleck with a swagger and a penchant for getting in and out of trouble. They fight like…cats and dogs or more accurately, they argue in weak sitcom-style catty exchanges. When their adoptive family relocates from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, they have both pets put into a small box and put on a plane in the belly of the aircraft and make them fly together.
This just makes me furious why couldn’t they have packed each of the pets into the airliner in separate carriers? Really what sort of mothers and fathers are so daft to come up with such an idea? It may sound funny to see those squabbling animals put into a small space to force them to share but in fact it is just absurd and god knows how cruel.
Anyway who would have guessed these donkeys Gracie and Pedro would fight so much that they caused the complex design of the cargo’s conveyor belt system to decide ‘f… it’ and malfunction. They never got on the aims plane instead, they have to depend on the goodwill of others to get buses and trains to Utah. Some want to help them such as Sarandon’s Meaning Of Life ‘Shades’, who is a rabbit and part of her husband’s magic act and is on the way to Las Vegas. (And yes, she is sporting sun shades; that’s where the name comes from. This is the level of creativity displayed in the screenplay, which is quite amusing given it took 3 people to put together). Others who want to munch them include condor voice actor Nighy, who is a dark and nasty enemy character that might terrify the audience the movie is made for.
Back in Salt Lake City on the other hand, daughter Sophie (Bianca Along) and her younger brother Gavin who is mute, quite naturally go crazy when they realize their beloved pets are not around.
Desperate for help, they film a music video that subsequently trends all over the Internet. Among all of them, Sophie’s voice is the highest pitched, most piercing no wonder we hear so much of her, being the only one unstuck with a plan in a bunch of helpless grownups. And as if the condor character were not intimidating enough, the thrilling finale features the children in a desolate, run down amusement park where a decaying coaster runs the risk of killing them all. Very fun!
If, however, you seek an animated feature that is suitable for all audiences and in which animals do very silly and very funny things, then I can suggest and I know I am not being original here any of the charming and creatively made Wallace & Gromit shorts or movies, or literally anything but this one.
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