Review of A Dog's Purpose (2017) by James R — 19 Feb 2017

A pretty nice solid family film that pulls at the emotional strings. A Dog's Purpose is about a dog (voiced by Josh Gad), who lives his life and when he dies he is reincarnated into another dog, therefore living another life.

The whole time he is questioning things such as "What is my purpose?," "Why does Bacon taste good?" etc. We basically start with him as Bailey a lab during 1961 living with a young boy named Ethan (Bryce Gheisar).

This is the longest point in the film and we follow Ethan as he grows into a young adult (played by K.J. Appa). As things go down we see life in Bailey's eyes and see how human drama and life looks through his perspective.

We follow Bailey through several transformations that leads him eventually to becoming another dog in the present day. Here he find a much older Ethan (played by Dennis Quaid) who seems unhappy with life.

Is this finally his purpose? The film is kinda cheesy at times. we get voiceover from Gad talking through the dogs view and sometimes it works, but sometimes it sounds like some incredibly cheesy dialogue.

There's a lot of tear jerking moments in the film, but easily the first story as Bailey is the strongest of the bunch. I almost feel like just focusing on this could have made the movie itself stronger overall (regardless of taking away the whole reincarnation bit, but hey I'm no director apparently).

Overall, it's predictable, but has a lot of heart. The story s decent and I think most kids and dog lovers will enjoy this one. I'd say give it a rent when available if this applies to ya!