Cats & Dogs (2001)

Cats & Dogs arrives from the summer of 2001 with a simple proposition: the long feud between the species is a covert war, complete with underground headquarters, ninja assassins, and a Persian cat named Mr. Tinkles who dreams of global dominion. The plot turns on a professor's allergy vaccine, which would let humanity keep dogs without sneezing, and thereby shift the balance of pet power. It is a children's spy spoof, assembled with puppets, CGI, and the confident assumption that a beagle in a spy harness is inherently funny. That assumption is mostly correct.

The film's cultural footprint is faint. Michael Clarke Duncan voices Sam, an Old English Sheepdog agent, and Miriam Margolyes appears in live action as Sophie the maid, but neither presence carries any argument about who gets to be on screen. Susan Sarandon gives Ivy, a former field agent, a dry competence, though the role remains the standard mentor and old flame, there to encourage the puppy and soften the gruff veteran. Beyond that, the cupboard is bare. There is no environmental sermon, no critique of the wealthy, no meditation on identity or the body, no neurodivergent reading to be extracted from a talking cat with a vendetta.

What the film does have is craft in service of nonsense, and an eagerness to please that never once stops to instruct. It wants laughs, ticket sales, and a sequel, and it got all three. For those of us who classify such things, this is a relief and a slight disappointment. There is nothing here to argue about, which is its own kind of achievement.