The leap from small-screen stardom to silver-screen viability is a tough one, as former Home Improvement star Tim Allen’s movie career amply demonstrates. Built chiefly on the foundation of two franchises — Toy Story and The Santa Clause
— in which he is either not seen at all or seen in heavily
prostheticized form, Allen is one of those guys who paying audiences
seem to be able to take or leave. Many films in which he’s taken a more
decidedly straightforward human form (2001’s Joe Somebody, the following year’s Big Trouble) have flat-out tanked, with Galaxy Quest — in which he anchored an estimable ensemble — being the notable exception. The Shaggy Dog,
then, further extends Allen’s status as distributor Disney’s adult-male
counterpart to Lindsay Lohan — which is not to say a serial partier and
late arriver on set, but the star of remade in-house properties.

Upping the antics and, of course, the CGI, The Shaggy Dog
did decently for Disney at the box office this spring, but, call me
old-fashioned, there’s something more inherently charming about the
low-fi 1959 original, based on Felix Salten’s novel and starring Fred
MacMurray. It helps that in that movie it’s not MacMurray who
actually suffers the self-pawing indignity of the magical
transformation into the titular canine, but instead his son Wilby
(Tommy Kirk). Here, though, Allen is workaholic lawyer (and animal
loather) Dave Douglas, who never quite has enough time for his wife
Rebecca (Kristin Davis), his son Josh (Spencer Breslin) and his
activist teenage daughter Carly (Zena Grey). Things change, though,
when the bite of an immortal Tibetan dog (yes, you read right)
transforms Dave constantly back and forth, and pits him — via a series
of constant misunderstandings and botched explanations of his
predicament — against an evil pharmaceutical company out to extract an
anti-aging serum.

Director Brian Robbins brings a deft, light touch to the staging of
the material and Robert Downey, Jr. has a blast as the unprincipled Dr.
Kozak — watching him here makes you realize what a great strictly kids’
performer he could be — but Cormac and Marianne Wibberley’s (I Spy, National Treasure) script never really gels and comes up with many scenarios beyond the expected. All in all, The Shaggy Dog
is exactly the movie you anticipate it to be, almost to the scene. If
dutifully fulfilled requirements in the name of a moralizing family
narrative still floats your boat, then so be it.

Housed in a regular, white Amray snap case, The Shaggy Dog
comes with a paper insert listing chapter stops, and is presented in
the viewer’s choice of 1.33:1 full screen or 2.40:1 widescreen, the
latter enhanced for 16×9 televisions. A Dolby digital 5.1 surround
sound English language track anchors both releases, along with French
and Spanish subtitles, while the full-screen version also includes
French and Spanish 2.0 audio tracks.

As far as supplemental features, a four-minute collection of deleted
scenes is put forth, along with a brief segment which purports to offer
up translations for dog’s bark. (Without benefit of a canine, I was
unable to put this featurette to the test.) Director Robbins and
producer David Hoberman’s glad-handing audio-commentary track is
available on the widescreen version of the movie, and centers mainly
around general, and genial, production anecdotes. A
two-and-a-half-minute blooper reel — showcasing Allen’s nervousness
with some of the animals and Downey, Jr. cracking up over several lines
— and sneak peeks at other Disney titles round things out. C (Movie) B- (Disc)