A Dog's Way Home Review

A Dog’s Way Home has a solid first act, but quickly becomes a massive bore. This movie is about a dog who runs away and treks across the USA searching for her owner. Bryce Dallas Howard did an okay job voicing the mental thoughts of the dog. However, the voiceover makes less sense when she's not interacting with humans. Jonah Hauer-King gives a good performance. You believe his friendship with the dog and they have some fun moments together. Alexandra Shipp gives a great performance. She has excellent chemistry with Hauer-King and their friendship is what makes the first act compelling. All the other small supporting performances throughout the movie are very poor but take minimal screen time. Charles Martain Smith did an okay job directing. His direction is perfectly competent but comes across like a tv movie at times. The script starts off good but turns terrible very quickly. This movie puts the dog through as much pain and suffering as they can. Without any human characters to attach to that becomes annoying fast. At 96 minutes the pacing is okay. The first act is enjoyable thanks to its human characters and I enjoyed the last ten minutes. However, the entire second act and most of the third act is a massive bore and drags on forever. Overall, A Dog’s Way Home has a good first act but becomes boring quickly. Due to this movie’s attempt to put the dog through an immense amount of suffering without a good story to make it bearable, I cannot recommend this movie to anyone.

4/10