#A DOGS PURPOSE RATING SERIES#

In the main story, Ethan-even as a teenage boy-gets a range of personality traits: He loves his mother, he has a unique relationship with his grandparents, he has plans for college and for his career, he has inside jokes with Hannah, he has interests and dislikes. It’s the stories with other owners where the film really drags, reinforcing its gender stereotypes in frustrating ways.

#A DOGS PURPOSE RATING SERIES#

But when an accident derails Ethan’s plans for the future, he takes it out on both Hannah and Bailey, sparking the series of events that takes the dog away from the boy and starts his journey with other owners. When Ethan starts dating the lively, intelligent Hannah (Britt Robertson, of “Mother’s Day”), Bailey is overjoyed to see his owner so happy. Ethan was a perfect owner: He loved Bailey fully, protected him from Ethan’s alcoholic father, and was “leader of our pack,” Bailey says. Mostly, though, Bailey just wants to reunite with his most formative owner, Ethan, who first got him when he was an 8-year-old boy (played by Bryce Gheisar) and was his primary companion as he grew into a teenager (played by K.J.

He goes from pound puppy to Red Retriever to German Shepherd to Corgi, trying out various forms and ending up one time as a female dog, which makes him think he’s “missing parts” (a bit that is supremely weird when Gad’s essence is still male, a clumsy storytelling moment that feels like a lost opportunity to finally tell the story from the perspective of another gender). The film tells one central story and then a few different shorter ones in its attempt to answer the question of the main dog, Bailey (voiced by Josh Gad, of “Frozen”), who narrates the film and is its sole point-of-view character: “What is the meaning of life? Are we here for a reason? Is there a point to any of this?” Through various lives over a number of years, Bailey tries to figure it out as he is transferred from body to body, waking up each time and exclaiming his shock at being “back.” The feeling of authenticity just isn’t here. If you know anything about that ordeal, “A Dog’s Purpose”-which is crafted to, more than anything, make you cry-feels at best disingenuous and at worst manipulative.

“A Dog’s Purpose” has had a rough go of it over the past couple of weeks, with the release of a video that claims to show a German Shepherd dog being mistreated on set and a messy public battle between the film’s creators defending it and viewers of the video denouncing their behavior.

A dogs purpose rating