“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” is harmless and innocent. It doesn’t tell much of a story, but it certainly has plenty of special effects for younger audiences to gawk at, especially since just about all of them involve the titular house pets. It is, of course, the sequel to the 2001 hit “Cats & Dogs,” which was founded on the premise that cats and dogs have been at war with each other for centuries; the fight continues, although I seriously doubt that the story has progressed in real time, since the characters from the first film – many full grown – would in all likelihood already be in doggie or kitty heaven after the passage of nine years. But no, let’s not get into that. Let’s pretend that these super intelligent pets, some of them scientists, have developed some sort of a life-extending potion.
 
Just like in the first movie, the animals have the ability to speak when not in the presence of humans. This is made possible through a number of cinematic tricks, such as compositing computer generated mouths onto the heads of real animals, building entire animals digitally, or constructing articulated puppets and animatronic figures. They’re also given a number of super cool spy gadgets, many of them even more interesting than anything James Bond has embedded in his cufflinks. So much effort was put into bringing these animals to life that it’s easy to understand why virtually no time is spent on human characters. The trade off is that virtually no time is spent on a plot – at least, not a plot that anyone, children least of all, would bother caring about.
 
It begins with a German Shepherd police dog named Diggs (voiced by James Marsden), who, because of his inability to follow orders, is placed back into the station kennel. From out of nowhere comes Butch, our Anatolian Shepherd hero from the first film (voiced by Nick Nolte, replacing Alec Baldwin); he brings Diggs to Dogs HQ – a massive dog bowl-shaped underground structure with miles of transportation tubing branching off in all directions – where he’s recruited on a mission to save the world from the nefarious Kitty Galore, a rogue hairless Sphinx cat (voiced by Bette Midler). Her evil scheme: Use an orbiting satellite to make all dogs on the planet go mad, thus ending their reign as Man’s Best Friend and forever securing cats as the dominant house pet. This, in turn, would enable cats to enslave humanity.

Because the lives of humans are at stake, Kitty Galore is also pursued by Catherine (voiced by Christina Applegate), a gray cat for a feline spy network known as M.E.O.W. When she crosses paths with Diggs and Butch, things don’t go smoothly. Remember, they’re cats and dogs – they hate each other on general principles. But then they come to a startling realization: If Kitty Galore is to be stopped, cats and dogs will have to work together. Perhaps this movie was made as an elementary school introduction to racism. Honestly, why do cats and dogs hate each other so much? I have a dream that one day, my pets will grow up in a world where they will not be judged by their species and breed but by the content of their character.
 
Other characters, such as a clueless pigeon (voiced by Katt Williams) and the bow tie-wearing head of M.E.O.W. (voiced by Roger Moore) make their way into the story, as does Lou, returning from the first film as the head of Dog HQ (voice by Neil Patrick Harris, replacing Tobey Maguire). There’s also a brief scene with old nemesis Mr. Tinkles (voiced by Sean Hayes), trussed up and muzzled like Hannibal Lecter in Alcatraz; apparently, it’s still a working prison when it comes to cats.
 
Meanwhile, Diggs’ human partner, Shane (Chris O’Donnell), desperately searches for his canine companion. One wonders why, since it’s mentioned that he has a wife and a newborn baby; the last time I checked, your immediate family was more important than a rookie dog cop. One also wonders why Shane was even included. You can count on one hand the number of times he appears in this movie. The same can be said for Kitty Galore’s owner, a tacky carnival magician (Jack McBrayer), who serves no real purpose other than to act goofy and make Kitty’s life miserable. He’s disposable comedy relief, and that’s about it. I don’t know – it seems to me that, if you’re going to include human characters, you should actually do something with them. They should work with the plot and not in spite of it. Of course, that would defeat the purpose of the title’s first three words, so I guess I shouldn’t be complaining.
 
I’ve described the plot, but I really have no angle of approach here, except to say that this movie confirmed what I’ve suspected for years: Catnip is the feline equivalent of marijuana. Oh, and it’s in 3-D. In order to see it that way, of course, you have to be willing to pay extra at the box office and to wear uncomfortable glasses the entire time. Can we all agree that, while sometimes it works beautifully, it’s generally an overhyped, overused marketing gimmick that doesn’t much enhance the experience? What happened to the days of watching a perfectly good flat image? I’ve praised certain 3-D films, but I’m rapidly growing weary of the process. I’m sure the kids will enjoy it, as they will enjoy all the fun visual effects saturating the screen. Bottom line: “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” didn’t do much for me, but it’s adequate for the age group it’s intended for.

- Chris Pandolfi

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