"Even dogs get ptsd"
Max is about a dog who is part of the marines, or some military group, and he sniffs out contraband in Afghanistan and those countries. When his owner is killed in action, and he is decommissioned from the marines, it is up to his owner's brother to help ease him into a cozy life. This can be seen in the trailer, and it was by the people who brought you Marley and Me so I was ready to be prepared for those incoming feels, but sadly that's not what the movie was about.
Before I begin talking about the movie I do want to get this out of the way. This is rated PG and I'm sure it was made that to get the families to see it, but in all honesty this should have been a PG-13 rating. The beginning shows the men in Afghanistan and people shooting at each other, even though you can tell that they had to pull back to keep the PG rating, and even later in the story we have people pointing guns at other people, pointing guns at dogs, hell there are even two or three really intense scenes where Max is actually fighting other dogs. Not only are there scary scenes like those for children, but the movie has a subplot that just doesn't work in a PG film, and with a PG-13 this film could have been fleshed out and less annoying; however, I still wouldn't have liked as much as its trailer.
Warning Spoilers
Now, I'm not sure if this constitutes as a spoiler since it does happen early in the film, but we learn that the main character's brother has a friend in the army who is supplying the Mexicans with illegal arms, and this subplot becomes so bloated that the whole third act of the movie is transformed into an action flick.
Now before we get to that mess, the film does start off like what you would expect from the trailer in that it relies on the family dynamics. The father/son relationship is very broken in their household and I would have loved for the whole movie to be about the families relationship, but that was just too good to be true. In fact, after the brother's funeral we spend more time with Justin's (the brother who 'inherits' Max) friends who got on my nerve so much.
I just want to forget about his friends so much. The first one we meet is Chuy (Chew-E) and he talks like he up in da hood. Every time a serious moment happened or someone who wasn't Justin appeared on screen he'd split and leave the poor guy. Throughout the film I was questioning why would Justin be friends with him, and it gave me no reason. After him and the other 'biker ganstas' we meet Chuy's cousin, who is a girl, and immediately I knew those two would end up together and they do. What upsets me is that it felt forced once it came time for their kiss scene, and before that it just felt like they were friends.
A lot of the comedy is placed on the kids. Chuy's purpose in the film is solely comedy relief and man is it bad. Its so cliche and painfully delivered that I cringed a few times. There are some comedy bits with the dog, which would make dog lovers swoon, but overall they could have cut all the comedy out of this movie and it would have been a fraction better than it was.
So now that subplot. That friend of Justin's brother that was selling arms comes back and asks for a job, but because Max remembers that treacherous baddy who deserves to be in a PG-13 film the guy comes to terms with the fact that he has to now kill Max. Are you kidding me? All he had to do was stay away from Max and this could have been solved. Once the dog barks at you you automatically think "oh crap the jig is up!"
Once his plan to get rid of Max fails Justin's dad is kidnapped, Max fights other dogs, a forced kiss is put on screen, some very bad acting bad guys arrive, a car flips and explodes, the guns catch fire and explode into the area, and Max pushes the bad guy over a "cliff" "sacrificing" himself only to come back in the next scene alright. Yeah, all that happened in the third act as they quickly tie up the more interesting parts of the movie with the dad finally getting to good terms with Justin.
What started with a very promising idea quickly turned into a cliche by the books movie that has bad acting, forgettable characters, and an action sequence for an end. This is about a dog and it turned into die hard...wow. The kids were stereotypical "yo homes I'm not white so we complain" vs the mother who only says overly dramatic lines, to a bad guy that points a gun at a kid saying "you're making me do this." As the story unfolds you find yourself rolling your eyes and watching such a big mess unfold. The only good thing about the movie is Max, and if your a dog lover (which is most of the planet) it seems like that would be enough to get you through this movie.
Max is about a dog who is part of the marines, or some military group, and he sniffs out contraband in Afghanistan and those countries. When his owner is killed in action, and he is decommissioned from the marines, it is up to his owner's brother to help ease him into a cozy life. This can be seen in the trailer, and it was by the people who brought you Marley and Me so I was ready to be prepared for those incoming feels, but sadly that's not what the movie was about.
Before I begin talking about the movie I do want to get this out of the way. This is rated PG and I'm sure it was made that to get the families to see it, but in all honesty this should have been a PG-13 rating. The beginning shows the men in Afghanistan and people shooting at each other, even though you can tell that they had to pull back to keep the PG rating, and even later in the story we have people pointing guns at other people, pointing guns at dogs, hell there are even two or three really intense scenes where Max is actually fighting other dogs. Not only are there scary scenes like those for children, but the movie has a subplot that just doesn't work in a PG film, and with a PG-13 this film could have been fleshed out and less annoying; however, I still wouldn't have liked as much as its trailer.
Warning Spoilers
Now, I'm not sure if this constitutes as a spoiler since it does happen early in the film, but we learn that the main character's brother has a friend in the army who is supplying the Mexicans with illegal arms, and this subplot becomes so bloated that the whole third act of the movie is transformed into an action flick.
Now before we get to that mess, the film does start off like what you would expect from the trailer in that it relies on the family dynamics. The father/son relationship is very broken in their household and I would have loved for the whole movie to be about the families relationship, but that was just too good to be true. In fact, after the brother's funeral we spend more time with Justin's (the brother who 'inherits' Max) friends who got on my nerve so much.
I just want to forget about his friends so much. The first one we meet is Chuy (Chew-E) and he talks like he up in da hood. Every time a serious moment happened or someone who wasn't Justin appeared on screen he'd split and leave the poor guy. Throughout the film I was questioning why would Justin be friends with him, and it gave me no reason. After him and the other 'biker ganstas' we meet Chuy's cousin, who is a girl, and immediately I knew those two would end up together and they do. What upsets me is that it felt forced once it came time for their kiss scene, and before that it just felt like they were friends.
A lot of the comedy is placed on the kids. Chuy's purpose in the film is solely comedy relief and man is it bad. Its so cliche and painfully delivered that I cringed a few times. There are some comedy bits with the dog, which would make dog lovers swoon, but overall they could have cut all the comedy out of this movie and it would have been a fraction better than it was.
So now that subplot. That friend of Justin's brother that was selling arms comes back and asks for a job, but because Max remembers that treacherous baddy who deserves to be in a PG-13 film the guy comes to terms with the fact that he has to now kill Max. Are you kidding me? All he had to do was stay away from Max and this could have been solved. Once the dog barks at you you automatically think "oh crap the jig is up!"
Once his plan to get rid of Max fails Justin's dad is kidnapped, Max fights other dogs, a forced kiss is put on screen, some very bad acting bad guys arrive, a car flips and explodes, the guns catch fire and explode into the area, and Max pushes the bad guy over a "cliff" "sacrificing" himself only to come back in the next scene alright. Yeah, all that happened in the third act as they quickly tie up the more interesting parts of the movie with the dad finally getting to good terms with Justin.
What started with a very promising idea quickly turned into a cliche by the books movie that has bad acting, forgettable characters, and an action sequence for an end. This is about a dog and it turned into die hard...wow. The kids were stereotypical "yo homes I'm not white so we complain" vs the mother who only says overly dramatic lines, to a bad guy that points a gun at a kid saying "you're making me do this." As the story unfolds you find yourself rolling your eyes and watching such a big mess unfold. The only good thing about the movie is Max, and if your a dog lover (which is most of the planet) it seems like that would be enough to get you through this movie.
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