After I finished watching the original “Benji”, I followed it up the next day with a viewing of “For the Love of Benji”, the first followup to the first film. Special note, this review was made possible due to Mill Creek Entertainment providing me a review copy of three Benji movies. I had intended to see this movie for a long time and for one reason or another, just forgot about (which is easy to do when your film collection rivals that of Blockbuster from years ago).
The film follows Benji, Tiffany, and his owners as they travel to Greece. While Benji is waiting to be loaded on the plane, a mysterious stranger marks Benji’s paw with something and then boards the plan for Greece. Unfortunately, Benji and Tiffany get lost and when the bag handler finds them, he accidentally allows Benji to escape. So, the film revolves around Benji being lost in a foreign land and his owners, special agents, and criminals all trying to find him before the other party does.
“For the Love of Benji” is a followup that tries to top the original film in scope and I feel like that is where is ultimately stumbles a bit. I like that Joe Camp tried to tell a different story but making the film “bigger” sort of took some of the spirit of the first film away. “Benji” was a character piece focused on a dog rather than a human. It didn’t need to top the original, it just needed to be cute.
Setting the movie in Greece felt a little like the film was doubling for a tourist advertisement. A good chunk of the dialogue spoken in the film is in Greek with no English subtitles. Whatever the reason for setting the film in Greece, I feel like the movie suffered a bit as a result.
“For the Love of Benji” is essentially the movie in which Benji becomes a spy. The film feels like they put the original “Benji” film and the original “Mission: Impossible” tv show in a blender. I felt like at any moment, Benji might have turned out to be Martin Landau in a big reveal. I never thought I could compare a dog movie to “The French Connection” but that is what I am doing I guess.
The film depicts Benji’s adventurous spirit and resourcefulness but it does so at the cost of showcasing his loyalty at times. That is a small complaint I had at the beginning but the film quickly went back to focus on Benji wanting to reunite with his family. One thing that struck me about this film and it’s predecessor were their reliance on visual storytelling, everything wasn’t spoken or addressed to the audience, you actually had to watch the film to see what was happening. It kind of reminded me how short our attention span has gotten over the years. I also loved Benji’s eyes and how expressive they were in conveying his confusion and fear.
After all is sad and done, “For the Love of Benji” was an entertaining film but wasn’t as emotionally charged as the 1974 original film. There are definitely worse sequels though. ::cough:: “Highlander 2” ::cough::
Grade: C+
No comments:
Post a Comment