The initial film that started a franchise is given special treatment on this re-release. However, the special features are somewhat flip and only part of which the kiddo set will care about.
Buddy, a golden retriever, is the second part of an act with boozy clown Norman Snively (Michael Jeter). When Buddy messes up the duo’s last gig, Snively promises that he’s going to take Buddy to the pound.
On the way, the pet carrier that Buddy is in falls off Snively’s ramshackle pickup truck and ends up in the middle of the road. It’s nearly hit by the Framm family car. Young Josh Framm (Kevin Zegers) sees Buddy in his clown get up, but mom Jackie (Wendy Makkena) just continues into town.
On the way home, Josh finds an abandoned church with a basketball goal and begins to clean the place up and practice there. He also finds Buddy who has been living in the surrounding woods. He accidentally discovers that Buddy can play basketball as well. In his duties as “manager” he has to wash the dirty laundry of the team and sneaks around Arthur Chaney’s (Bill Cobbs), the maintenance man, office.
He finds a New York Knicks jersey and looking through his dad’s basketball card collection finds that Chaney was a player of note in the “good old days” but when he asks him to autograph the card, Chaney says that Arthur Chaney is dead. Chaney does do Josh a solid when he leaves an invite to try out for the team in his locker.
Chaney teaches the boys how to work as a team and even Buddy gets in the act. Unfortunately, it brings the attention of the local media and Snively. Snively, smelling a way to make some money, shows up and demands that Buddy be returned to him and now the family must deal with the greedy, sinister clown.
This is the film that spawned the “Buddies” series and it’s really nothing like them. It may be more akin to Unca’ Walt’s nature pictures by the fact that they never CGI a moving mouth onto the dogs or have a narrator tell us what Buddy is thinking (it does get closer to the Buddies series with the commentary, but more on that later).
Actor Charles Martin Smith steps into the director’s chair with ease and has crafted a cute, family film about a dog that plays basketball. No doubt the financial success of the film got him some more directing gigs too. The cute factor is turned up to high and the plot isn’t exactly anything new, but the film does entertain.
It would be the start of a franchise for the House of Mouse as Buddy would return in several other sports themed films and eventually start a kid-friendly series of “Buddie” movies focusing on his puppies.
The cast is good, with Zegers playing the lonesome boy well, villainous support by the late Jeter (who is top billed for his small role), and always solid acting by Cobb.
This firmly pushes the film into “Buddies” territory, but I can’t imagine that the kiddies that loved that series will give a hoot about a commentary. They try and intersperse some film facts about the film into the commentary but since it’s in the silly concept of talking dogs (“Oh yeah, I remember shooting this scene” says Buddy) you may not want to wade through it to hear them. Next is the 2 minute theatrical trailer. The only other addition is an oversized box that contains a Buddy dog tag necklace.
Air Bud is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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