Unleashed - Review - Mind on Movies

R: August 25th, 2017 | R: 96 minutes | R: PG-13

After going through a horrendous breakup, Astronomy App designer Emma (played by Kate Micucci) claims that she is done with dating. But one night, an atronic cosmic supermoon appears in the sky, and the lights shine on her pets Sam the obnoxious dog (played by Steve Howey), and Diego the feisty cat (played by Justin Chatwin). When those rays shine on Sam and Diego they turn into full grown men changing their lives. Quickly, they realize that if they explain to Emma what happened, she would think they are crazy. The pets realize that they only have one option. They have to fight for Emma’s love.

This wild film is directed by Finn Taylor (who previously directed “Dream with the Fishes” and “The Darwin Awards”). And wow this film feels like it was made for tv. As you can probably already tell, the plot is absurd. This film feels like a slightly edgier version of one of those Disney Channel movies. To start, “Unleashed” jumps into the story noticeably quickly. And it stays at that pace the whole movie, things are thrown at the audience left and right. Or sometimes some major plot element will be thrown from nowhere. Also at points many elements feel shoehorned into the film just to keep the runtime over an hour. Although this films plot is incredibly sloppy and uneven, the love triangle is somewhat interesting. But like I said, that was the only thing that had me intrigued in this sloppy mess.

This film has a laughably childish script, and the dialogue comes out cheesy and silly. The acting did not help either, there was very little emotional attachment to the characters. I can say that Justin Chatwin and Steve Howey did alright for acting like human version of their animal selves. But then again it's not too hard to act like a silly dog. Now I did not hate watching this film. It just was very sloppy, and felt like it had the production quality of a Disney Channel show for eight year old children.

Like I mentioned before: the plot is a mess, the acting is absurd and the production quality is laughable. I mean sure children may enjoy this, but why not offer them something along the lines of “Babe”, “The Lion King” or “Jumanji” rather than this silly mess. Overall this film is very forgettable and I would not recommend catching it in cinemas...or on RedBox.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Cabell (Contributor) is a filmmaker from Tampa, Florida. He will watch just about any film but when he's not reviewing the latest hits he spends time directing films of his own.
Click Here to check out Cabell's Articles.