Firehouse Dog Movie Review

On the bus ride to New York City this weekend, we watched a few movies. The first was Firehouse Dog.

For some reason we loaded onto the bus about half an hour before departure (we were so eager to sit and do nothing!). During this time, the title menu sequence for Firehouse Dog played on repeat about 180 times. A ten second sound byte played on repeat and the menu was framed by two dog images. The first was a scruffy old mutt, and the second was the same dog but all pampered up with a little hair do, wearing sunglasses.

I turned to the guy behind me.

Me: Oh boy! Firehouse dog! I think it was a Disney straight to DVD! I can't wait!
Him: heh.

Me: I hope the dogs talk! In cute voices!
Him: heh.

Me: Look! Sunglasses! This is hilarious and adorable!
Him: I'm not sure if you're joking or not...

The fact of the matter, freader, is that I was not sure either. Is this a movie I would love to hate or hate to love?

Turns out I loved loving it. Note please: the volume was very low, so I couldn't follow the movie TOO closely. You'd only hear the exclamatory parts like, "I HATE YOU, DAD" or [spoiler warning] "YOU FOUND MY DOG!"

It was the classic tale of a pampered movie star canine (famous for hits like Jurassic Bark and Fast and the Furriest) who somehow falls out of an airplane so his owner thinks he's dead. The little curly toupee gets blown off so now he just looks like a regular dirty dog. He meets up with the boy, who is obviously a good kid but having trouble (he skips school and sits at the lunch table for people with glasses who like math) who is parented only by his dad, the chief of the local firehouse.

Local firehouse? But what about the other nearby firehouse in the region? Why that is chiefed by a hot single mom. Mom to a pretty girl who happens to also sit at the lunch table for people with glasses who like math. Oh, and that the other firehouse has a dalmatian who always wins the firehouse dog contests.

Then the boy bonds with the ex-movie star dog, and he is really good at all sorts of stuff like knowing where exactly to dig when somebody gets buried under the rubble. And then he falls in love with the dalmatian. So basically we've got like, a triple date with the single dad and single mom, uncool but cool boy and uncool but cool girl, and dalmatian and ex movie star dog.

So everything is great except there's also an arsonist on the lose but don't worry they [spoiler alert] catch him on account of the boy and the dog's cleverness, bravery, and teamwork.

Oh and then the actual owner finds the dog and tries to take him back to his old life, but the dog [spoiler alert] leaves because he's found where he belongs and it is in a firehouse. I guess they wanted the movie to be about 10 minutes longer.

Overall I give this movie 9/10 and I suggest you watch it with somebody you love.