<b>The</b> movie "A Dog's Way Home", adapted from the novel of the same name, proves that the cute pet adventure movie with Wang Xingren as the protagonist has a charming and heart-warming unique charm. Even if the plot theme is no more eye-catching than the 2017 sister movie "A Dog's Mission", "A Dog's Way Home" takes the audience on a 400-mile search journey from the perspective of a dog, full of fun and tears, especially dog-loving audiences will certainly not be disappointed.
<b>(Spoiler alert</b>).
A Dog's Way Home is based on another novel of the same name by W. Bruce Cameron, the original author of A Dog's Mission. Bella, the protagonist voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard, is raised by the male protagonist Lucas (Jonah Hall-King) in an abandoned building when he is a puppy.
Bella grows up happily under the meticulous care of Lucas and her mother Terry (Ashley Judd), and after accompanying Terry to the Veterans Hospital for regular treatment on one occasion, Bella also begins to "work" with patients in the hospital.
Unfortunately, Bella was hunted down for being labeled a bulldog by the Animal Service, and Lucas had no choice but to temporarily foster Bella at a friend's house while finding a new home in a neighboring city where bulldogs were allowed to be kept, in order to take Bella home. But Bella certainly didn't understand Lucas's plan, and just as Lucas moved to his new home and was ready to pick him up, the resilient Bella found the opportunity to jump out of the foster family's backyard and embark on a 400-mile, more than two-year-long family search adventure.
Voiced by Bella is the heroine of the "Jurassic World" series, Blythe Dallas Howard, her childish voice vividly interprets Bella's intelligence and cuteness, which is very compatible with the eyes and actions of the dog protagonist, building an important bridge between animal behavior and human emotions in the film, so that the audience not only feels that Bella is cute in appearance, but also successfully stimulates sympathy for Bella's encounter.
As the latest work of the pet protagonist movie, "A Dog's Way Home", of course, it is indispensable to the classic wonderful picture of the cute pet movie. Bella encounters a variety of people and animals during her adventures, other animals teach her wild survival skills, humans kindly take him in, and wild bobcats who have developed a close family relationship with Bella.
And one of the most classic cute movie scenes should be the "slow motion running to each other" scene when Bella and Lucas reunited, even though there are thousands of similar plots in the history of the film, the reunion still makes people cry. Director Charles Martin Smith has a wealth of experience in animal filmmaking, whether it is the Dolphin Story series or the more than 20-year-old "Dogs Are Crazy" series, Smith proves that similar animal films are enduring.
The only fly in the ointment of A Dog's Way Home is that the film is full of a variety of emotions, but the depth of the plot is insufficient. In the film, Lucas's mother, Terry, is a retired soldier, Bella goes to the veterans hospital to accompany patients, encounters a homeless veteran on the way to adventure, and at the end of the film, the veteran stands up to defend Bella's rights, etc. "A Dog's Way Home" seems to intentionally explore the issue of physical and mental health care after military retirement. Unfortunately, this part is only the point to the end, so that the audience continues to fluctuate in the emotions stirred up by the movie, but can not find a solid positioning point, can not leave a deep impression.
However, this has little impact on the audience to enjoy "A Dog's Way Home", after all, unexpected surprises are not the biggest selling point of this type of film. The film delicately takes the audience back to the innocent emotion between humans and animals, and the cute and eye-catching animals are indeed the dazzling stars of "A Dog's Way Home". The film met with Chinese audiences on January 18.