It’s been nine years — or ruff-ly 63 dog years — since “Cats & Dogs” came out to mixed reviews. About time for a sequel, the filmmakers apparently thought (maybe because a whole new generation of filmgoers has been born in the interim).
The result, “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” is an amusing summer-confection spy send-up, complete with a voice cameo from erstwhile James Bond Roger Moore as tux-clad feline spy chief Tab Lazenby.
The wagging tale goes like this: A creepy-looking, hairless puss named Kitty Galore (voiced by Bette Midler) is scheming to rid the world of dogs and conquer the planet using a sound that will turn man’s best friends into a pack of mad hounds. And she plans on sending out the sound with a satellite and secret transmitter.
That’s where an unlikely band of animal allies comes into the act. A hairier than usual Nick Nolte — OK, he’s playing a dog — voices Butch, the no-nonsense team leader. His partner is Diggs (James Marsden), a German shepherd just let go by the San Francisco Police Department. A wisecracking pigeon helps gather intel.
Then there’s Catherine (Christina Applegate), a cat!
Unlikely? Maybe, but no more so than the Americans teaming up with enemy Russia to defeat the Germans in World War II, right?
“Revenge” offers a steady stream of puns from the “Naked Gun” school of filmmaking: “We’ve got to stop the spread of radical feline-ism,” says one dog. Another animal mentions “paw-to-paw combat.” We even see a tableful of dogs playing poker.
The mix of actors (Jack McBrayer is the standout human as a witless carny magician), real animals, puppets and computer work is seamless. And the music is a lively soundtrack of Bond- and “Mission: Impossible”-like music with a little ’70s funk tossed in.
With action aplenty, talking animals and enough gags to make any sane grown-up groan, “The Revenge of Kitty Galore” is a harmless but fun hot-weather diversion for the family.
Oh, and while it hardly seems worth mentioning the film’s in 3-D where available (since everything is), it’s worth donning the clunky glasses for the Wile E. Coyote short preceding the feature film.
