Starring: David Walliams, Pudsey the Dog, Jessica Hynes

Genre: Comedy

Stray dog Pudsey (Pudsey the Dog – voiced by Walliams) befriends a family looking for a fresh start in the countryside and after a series of coincidences ends up joining them when they move to their new home. Though because the family’s new landlord Mr Thorne (John Sessions) hates dogs, the family are forced to have Pudsey taken away. However, after Pudsey discovers Mr Thorne’s evil plan to destroy their home and the local village to make way for a shopping complex, Pudsey must escape and somehow inform his new family and the other villagers of Mr Thorne’s plans and stop him before their village is destroyed forever.

Reality TV is utter tosh, and so films featuring reality TV characters are surely even worse. Well, One Chance, a retelling of the life story of the first winner of Britain’s Got Talent Paul Potts was a nasty and cynical film that was also utter tripe, but now we have Pudsey, the dancing dog who won Britain’s Got Talent a few years later (I don’t know which year and really do not care) starring as the lead in his own film.

All the cynical marketing aside, in concept alone Pudsey the Dog: the Movie could work. After all, there have been plenty of tremendous films with animal protagonists in the past and we all have our favourites, but unfortunately Pudsey the Dog: the Movie is horrifically bad. As adorable as Pudsey himself is, every other single aspect of the film is just horrifyingly bad and the whole thing is just a total abomination that makes Look Who’s Talking Now (remember that?) look like Citizen Kane.

Pudsey the Dog: the Movie is quite simply an insult to cinema; every aspect of this ‘film’, especially the writing and the acting is horrendously bad. I appreciate that this is a film for children, but children are not stupid and the story and its script are just horrible. The supposed ‘humour’ is so lazy and cheap it is embarrassing to watch and the apparent attempts at emotion are even worse. Every technical aspect of how this film is made is hideous too; if anyone paid to see this detritus at the cinema they have my deepest sympathies. Then there are the songs that randomly turn up when there is a montage or a need to speed the narrative up, well they just offend anyone who has hearing.

I am sure the likes of David Walliams, Jessica Hynes and John Sessions enjoyed their paycheques, but they all should know better and should feel truly embarrassed for what they have been a part of.

Pudsey the Dog: the Movie is ultimately a tragedy, and it is poor old Pudsey we should all feel sorry for, he has been punished for simply being a good dancer.

A film that is not only made with the deepest of cynicism, but made so badly that how bad it is as a film is actually beyond description; Pudsey the Dog: The Movie as a single concept could well have been great fun, but the result is a hideous and horrific viewing experience.

1/10