Eventually every cartoon ever broadcast will get the big screen treatment, I will say however, that Underdog was one of my favorites. I've always held that Simon Barsinister was the funniest villain nemesis name of all time, better even than Snidely Whiplash. As for Underdog it fares only fairly in the translation, garnering two "awesomes" from my 8 and 9 year olds, but only an "okay" from Pops. The script does do a serviceable job of serving up jokes that both child and parent can understand and appreciate but it got to be a bit precious overall.

Jason Lee was a good choice to voice the wisecracking wondermutt and Peter Dinklage and Patrick Warburton are well cast as Barsinister and his bumbling assistant bad guy Cad. I can almost always live without Jim Belushi in any role, but if it must happen being a Disney dad is possibly the least painful. Alex Neuberger is passable in the Kurt Russell slot and that's one thing I did admire about the style of the film – aside from the advanced special effects the film had a 60s The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes feel about it. Most of the oohs and ahs were manipulative and telegraphed with a swell of violins and they couldn't recreate the weird chemistry between Wally Cox's Underdog and Polly Purebread, in fact they went for more of a Clark Kent clueless Lois Lane relationship which felt all too familiar.

There's no question that the film-makers made a conscious decision to go after the youngsters here, this isn't Shrek or Toy Story level stuff, which surprised me somewhat because the original cartoon was one of those Rocky and Bullwinkle type affairs that appealed more to Mom and Dad than Jr. I guess I've just grown so accustomed to high level special effects that I just expect them to be top-notch, but I will mention they did a remarkable job of synching the movements of the dogs mouths to the spoken English.

Obviously the plot is going to revolve around a diabolical plan hatched by Barsinister and rely on the flying pooch to thwart such evil designs. It won't perch you on the edge of your seat, but kids 12 and under should be thoroughly pleased by this canine caper.