I may have seen a clip on TV or in the cinemas at the time of release, and many sources informed me that this Disney film was terrible, so I had to see if that was the case, from director Brian Levant (The Flintstones, Jingle All the Way, Are We There Yet?). Basically Miami dentist Ted Brooks (Cuba Gooding Jr.) has his face on hundreds of buses in the city, and he receives a letter from Alaska informing him of the death of his birth mother, so he was adopted by Amelia (Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols). He has an inheritance to claim, so he travels to the snowy Alaskan village of Tolketna where he is given a shack, and a pack of sled dogs who aren't every keen on their new owner. Despite not getting on with the dogs, and having a cash offer from grizzly Thunder Jack (James Coburn, in his final screen appearance before his fatal heart attack), Ted keeps the dogs like his mother intended. Along the journey of trying to get the dogs on his side, he starts hanging out with Barb (Joanna Bacalso), and it is obvious a love interest is developing between them. When Ted hears about the up and coming Arctic Challenge, a local race, he wants to have the dogs compete and show Thunder Jack, who may or not be his father (but is apparently) what they're made of. Also starring Thong Song rapper and Celebrity Big Brother's Sisqó as Dr. Rupert Brooks, Wild Wild West's M. Emmet Walsh as George, Graham Greene as Peter Yellowbear, Brian Doyle-Murray as Ernie and Jean Michel Paré as Olivier and Michael Bolton. With films like Boyz n the Hood and Jerry Maguire it is quite annoying seeing Gooding Jr. wasting his time in films like this, Boat Trip and Norbit, he hasn't done anything really good since Rat Race. Anyway, he and the rest of the cast don't do much, it is up to the cute and cuddly wolf-like husky dogs to keep the young audience happy, and some quite dull slapstick comedy, it is pretty terrible. Adequate!

This movie is supposedly based on Winterdance by Gary Paulsen. Forget the movie and read the book. This is one of my favourite books - I have read it several times and still get a lot of enjoyment from it. Everyone that I have recommended the book to have also enjoyed it.Why they had to change the book so radically is beyond me. The book has so much depth and character development that it would have made an excellent movie.The book, which is autobiographical, covers the same basic idea as the movie - the training of a dog team to run the Iditarod dog race in Alaska. We learn about the dogs personalities and also about how they interacted with Gary Paulsen.So once again forget the movie and read the book

From the unoriginal story, to the inconsistent characters, to the painful acting of Cuba Gooding, Jr., Snow Dogs proved two truths. The first is that Disney can successfully make and mass-produce B-level cinema. The second is that they can make Oscar-winning actors give the worst performances of their careers. Snow Dogs demonstrates fully that some people in Hollywood choose money over scripts, they choose flimsy over developed, and recycled over original. What upset me the most about this film was the use of CGI to exaggerate the dog's expressions. To me, that is a huge slap in Cuba Gooding, Jr's face. If the studio didn't think that Cuba could successfully make the audiences laugh, then they needed to get stronger talent, do not muddle the genre with CGI created eyes, mouths, and expressions on the dogs. With this CGI, I felt as if I was watching a quick fix to an already unfixable problem.Did I go into this film expecting greatness? Not in any way shape or form. What I did expect was a level of professionalism topped with some brilliant "something" to make me utterly aware that this was a Disney film and while they may have a bad film on their hands, at least they may throw money to fix the problem. Again, my expectations were demolished. It became very obvious as I watched this film that half of the scenes were in front of a green screen, not actually in Alaska. Some of the more emotional moments were completely ruined by the horrid special effects in place. Disney has the money, where did the $35 million dollar budget go? From the CGI created dog "faces" to the CGI trees, bears, and mountains, you never felt like you were in Alaska at all, but instead warmly comfortable inside an obvious sound stage. Pay up Disney, you cheated me on this one… From the delivery of the lines, the horrid physical comedy (which never worked), to the random moment of romance, not one character in this movie stayed in character or gave us any semblance of an actual character. I watched an hour and a half of actors awkwardly demonstrating to us that they did not know their characters, that they did not know their lines, and that the paycheck at the end was more important than the work throughout the process. I place solely the blame on Cuba Gooding, Jr. What happened to him? From the opening scene in Miami to the ending embarrassing "catch-phrase", I felt like Cuba should have handed the Academy back the award and apologized to everyone profusely. There are lines in Snow Dogs that were obviously read from a cue card. There were moments when it was obvious Cuba didn't care. He showed no range of emotion, no rational credibility, and again, there was no character. Who was Cuba Gooding, Jr. in this film? Just like a Tootsie Roll Pop, the world may never know! I could easily, and sadly, say the same about James Coburn. He was awarded an Oscar as well and the best he can manage is Snow Dogs? Who was Thunder Jack? What was his story, what made him gruff, what … what … what … just too many questions running through my mind with these key actors that it makes me feel sorry for the child audience this film was aimed towards. It was very clear that neither of these actors were passionate about the story for they would have stopped early and backed away. I would have thought that Cuba (or at least James Coburn) would have put their hands down when it was discovered that SISQO (Mr. Thong himself) was going to be a key player. Unbelievable is the level of lacking respect that both of these actors had for themselves. The proof is in Snow Dogs.What bothered me the most about this film was the lack of intelligence aimed towards children. This was a "family" film, yet racism seemed to be slapped directly in your face. There was a scene that sticks out in my mind when Gooding tries to find his real father and assumes that it can only be the other black man in town. When it is discovered that it is someone else, there is a shock in the community. This film was released in 2002, with the society that we live in why would this be such a shock to the system? Couple this with the fact that Michael Bolton brings us the "inspirational" line from the film, "It doesn't matter what color you are, everyone can have soul." Egh. Where did this come from, and is this a "good" message to send to children? This ranks right next to the feeling that Gooding's love-interest was the only woman within a 100-mile radius, and that those living in Alaska are grizzly men with bad teeth. I felt midway through this film that Disney executives were in their offices insisting on another Cool Runnings-esquire film (there was even a Volkswagen moment in this one). Sadly, with Snow Dogs their request became a nightmare.Overall, this was a cheap film, which boasts Oscar-winners performing well below the bar, CGI dogs and background, a story that hinges on the edge of fantasy, and the quintessential Disney "bow of approval". What I mean by this is that anything can happen, and with Disney films, it will. Gooding has the finances to leave his dental practice for several weeks without worrying about missing work, he can learn how to dog sled within a couple days, saves a man's life, and he immediately falls in love with the only girl from town who happens to be a model in her spare time. For those looking for a cute and cuddly film about dogs, I would not suggest this garbage. It is predictable, pretentious, and pathetic.Grade: * out of *****

This movie is most appreciated by certain groups of people. The first group is made up of the occupants of multiple big dog households. You will recognize your own behavior along with your dogs. The second group is made up of adoptive families. It's a wonderful movie to take an adopted child to. Cuba Gooding Jr. finds out he was adopted, and in the process, finds out how much his adoptive mother loves him, and learns that his biological parents loved him and each other and although they couldn't keep him, wanted more than anything to bring him into this world. This movie is also appreciated by people who are sick of naked people and dead dogs. Nobody gets naked, and none of the dogs die.