Max

Tout de même, deux batailles de chiens bien filmées et quelques bonnes répliques enfantines viennent parfois atténuer, le temps d'une scène, l'ennui qu'inspire cette production patriotique.

The mildly entertaining dog story, with its handful of heroic scenes, may work better on a particular (read: younger) audience than it did on me.

Anyone expecting complex, stirring drama is barking up the wrong tree.

Ici, tous les éléments typiquement américains sont réunis: patriotisme, glorification du service à son pays, importance de la famille, valeurs morales solides, etc. Malheureusement, cela est fait au détriment du scénario, qui ressemble à un agencement d'éléments disparates collés bout à bout en fonction d'une recette.

Mais malgré ses imperfections, Max n'en demeure pas moins un bon divertissement. On saura l'apprécier pour ce qu'il est : un film estival et familial simple et amusant. 

It's too bad the film doesn't provide a better sense of what makes the Belgian Malinois so uniquely suited to the battlefield, or find a way to pay more than lip service to the deep bonds developed between military men and animals.

Indeed, anything involving these cardboard cutouts isn't worth much of your time, but when Max is actually about Max, it's tugs a heartstring or two. You just can't help but feel the subject matter is worthy of more than the generic treatment it has been given here.

None of these plot points are run through with any thoughtfulness or panache. Despite a great, unaffected performance by Wiggins — the only one among the cast — and the primal joy of seeing the dog actors sprinting, leaping and maybe even emoting, the film is sunk because the characters never transcend their seeming origins in a Disney Channel movie project.