Review of Old Dogs (2009) by Eliot V — 28 May 2011

I'm not sure if Robin Williams woke up one morning in the '90s and said, "Y'know, I really never liked being funny," but based on his films since then it seems like a reasonable guess.

In Old Dogs there are a few gags that inspire guilty chuckles, but they flail helplessly in the midst of cheap jokes and cheaper sentiment, until by the end of the movie I was rubbing my eyes in disbelief as the film degenerated into absurd gorilla-related farce-a sign of late-night scriptwriter desperation if I ever saw one.

For me, Old Dogs suffered further as I had just seen Airplane! the night before, a work of boundless comic joy that is just as stupid but knows it is and has fun with the fact. Old Dogs tries to pretend it's funny and then betrays itself with the kind of maudlin sentimentality and peripheral attempts at humor that have been distinguishing Robin Williams films for years.