LOS ANGELES — James Marsden usually has all the actor’s tools in place for a performance — eyes, body language, facial expression and voice — but for “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” he was only working with sound. Despite that limitation, Marsden said the process has its strong points.
Maybe you have pets and wonder what they are saying but you don’t get to speak for them. James Marsden, Bette Midler and Christina Applegate got that chance in the new action adventure Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.
You might have seen the original film Cats and Dogs on video or DVD. It has taken nine years and much more sophisticated computer abilities and advances in puppetry to bring us to that film’s sequel.
We were with the cast of the movie (the real Cats and Dogs) as well as the humans who speak for them recently in Beverly Hills and asked the human actors the scoop on doing voice work in a talking animal movie, personal pets and even fave childhood toys.
“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” is a clever, funny movie that will entertain kids and adults.
I KNOW. I was as surprised as anyone. The idea of adorable animals (well, Kitty herself is pretty ugly) “acting” out a movie sounds as dumb as pretty much every other movie that fits that description.
Except that this time, thanks to a script with enough funny references to other films and a few homegrown laughs of its own, it works, at times pretty well. It’s like a James Bond movie acted out by house pets (the title is a Bond reference; kids, ask your parents), and it’s better than the Timothy Dalton ones.
Having Roger Moore on hand as the voice of a cat only makes it all the better.
Granted, it’s not a “Toy Story” movie, and it’s not “Inception.” But the sequel to the 2001 “Cats & Dogs” is a good-enough movie to hold the attention of both your children and you, and as anyone who frequents children’s movies knows, that’s gold.
Things have really gone to the dogs this summer. And the cats of course! In the new movie Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, a team of furry friends pull double duty to save the world.
On The Red Carpet’s Chi-Lan Lieu caught up with stars Christina Applegate, James Marsden, and Chris O’Donnell at the red carpet premiere, to talk about the four-legged film.
“I think this movie separates itself from some of the others, cause it takes on this James Bond theme,” said Marsden. “And you gotta get a kick out of the idea that our pets are the ones out there saving the world.”
“Kids can watch it and think ‘Oh My God is my cat or my dog have this covert operation when I’m not looking?’ You really get into that,” laughed Applegate. “When I came home, even though I’m a rational human being, I for one second looked at both my cat and my dog and was like, ‘what do you guys do when I’m not here? What is it?’”“I think the special effects are just incredible,” said O’Donnell. “It’s a little bit disconcerting when you watch it, because these dogs and cats really look like they’re talking. I mean the technology has gotten that good. This is not them putting peanut butter in the horse’s mouth to make him start yapping its gums or something. It’s pretty unbelievable.”
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore claws into theatres July 30.
Warner Bros. presents James Marsden (The “X-Men” trilogy) and Chris O’Donnell (“Batman and Robin”) in “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” a comedy in 3D that blends live action with state-of-the-art puppetry and computer animation.
In the film, “Kitty Galore,” formerly an agent for cat spy organization MEOWS, has gone rogue and hatched a diabolical plan to not only bring her canine enemies to heel, but take down her former kitty comrades and make the world her scratching post. Faced with this unprecedented threat, cats and dogs will be forced to join forces for the first time in history in an unlikely alliance to save themselves—and their humans.
Though Marsden and O’Donnell share the screen, director Brad Peyton explains, “they rarely got a chance to interact in person, but even so, their work came together in a way that created its own chemistry and in that sense they truly were a partnership.”
The ingenious ‘Cats & Dogs’ are back on the big screen, and this time Kitty Galore is getting revenge! ET is with Christina Applegate, James Marsden and Bette Midler, who are starring in the live-action/CGI family spy adventure!
“The past couple of years I’ve wanted to do things that I can, in my repertoire, show to my goddaughter and my future children,” Christina explains of why she wanted to do the film.