Snow Buddies (2008) 

Director: Robert Vince

Cast: James Belushi, Jimmy Bennett, Lothaire Bluteau

Synopsis: In this spin-off of the Air Bud franchise, five pups follow an ice cream transport truck to a plane and end up flying with the ice cream shipment to Alaska. There they find a pup friend and a boy who needs five dogs for a big race.

Snow Buddies is the seventh entry in a franchise that has now reached a staggering 14 movies.   The franchise began with Air Bud, a half-decent kid’s flick about a basketball-playing dog, but swiftly went downhill with each successive release.   It’s the kind of movie no right-thinking adult would choose to watch, but might feel obliged to sit through in order to appease the nearest five-year-old; everything about it lacks life or inspiration or much of a desire to add anything original to an old mutt that should have been put out of its misery a few movies before.   Five pups contrive to get themselves locked in a box full of ice cream en-route to Alaska where some cute kid dreams of having just five more dogs to add to his team of one so that he can enter the great Ferntiuktuk dog sled race.   Well – guess what? – the little chap gets his wish and enters the race and – well, I won’t spoil the ending for you.

Oh yeah, the rumours are true, by the way.  Five of the 28 puppies Disney flew in to share the lead roles really did die of a virus during or after filming.   I guess there isn’t any ‘no animals were harmed in the shooting of this picture’ message in the end credits for this classic then…

(Reviewed 20th December 2014)