Movie Thoughts: Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008)

• Released: 3 October 2008
• Directed by: Raja Gosnell
• Running time: 1 h 31 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A pampered Chihuahua from Los Angeles gets kidnapped and lost in Mexico.

My Thoughts

Beverly Hills Chihuahua… A movie that is by all accounts probably not very good and stupid in general yet I somehow can’t help but love. Yeah, maybe it’s because of nostalgia, but I keep having this real fondness for this film and I still don’t quite know where it stems from. I initially didn’t even want to see it, I just happened across it one day when it was playing on a birthday party it was at. The advertisements didn’t even look good, they just promised poorly CGI dancing Chihuahuas. Ah, well, let’s have a look at the actual film, shall we?

It’s pretty standard. I’m going to be honest, this story was also definitely not what I was expecting when getting into the film. The promotional material all make it mainly seem to be Papi’s journey, when in reality Chloe is the central character. She’s the one who goes on her life-changing journey, Papi stays remotely the same. He just wants Chloe to be his doggy gf and by the end of the movie she is, but he doesn’t change. Chloe learns not to be snooty and selfish anymore, to realize her true potential. I guess they did this to appeal more to boys, maybe? Since having this rich girl dog in dresses in most trailers will probably not exactly appeal to them? Ah well, who knows. Either way, I’d say it’s a pretty good story. It has a decent moral and a nice pace to it.

The characters are pretty good. Okay, not all of them, but the major ones mostly are. Chloe, like stated before, goes through the biggest change. At first she’s reluctant and just wants to go back to her comfortable of lifestyle, but gradually she becomes more open-minded and daring, which was nice to see. Delgado, probably my favorite character in the movie, also has a real likability to him. His friendship with Chloe is just really sweet and I’m glad it’s such a major focus of the movie. He has a sad backstory, but eventually overcomes his trauma, which is always nice to see. Papi…not a huge fan. He just gets what he wants and it’s nice to see him do anything for the one he loves despite her rejecting him time and again, but he does get grating from time to time. But it is nice to see that what he’s doing he’s doing purely out of the goodness of his heart and not because he feels like Chloe would owe it to him to love him after he got her back. Rachel has a more subdued arc, where she learns to become responsible. I still don’t like her very much, though. Granted, she gets over her bias towards Sam in the end, but seeing her talk down to him in the beginning just because she thinks he doesn’t speak English isn’t very nice. There’s more characters on the side of good, but none of them matter that much. I guess I could talk about the comic relief thieving rat and iguana for a moment, but they’re just…there. They are mostly annoying and honestly only further the story very little with their sideplot regarding Chloe’s collar.

The villains aren’t too great, I’ll be honest. El Diablo has this great presence, complete with his own theme and badassery, but his character is utterly lacking. He doesn’t even have that many lines, and the ones he does have are just generic bad guy dialogue. Vasquez, the human villain counterpart to Diablo, is even more uninteresting. He just wants to have money and profit off of Chloe and other dogs. That’s it. Kinda boring. 

Other elements were mostly decent at least and good at best. The CGI on the mouths of the animals still holds up mostly, but the digital stand-ins for the dogs in some action scenes do not. They are very obviously fake and just don’t move like real dogs would. I obviously want them to keep using CGI for dangerous animal stunts, but it does look really dated, I recall it even for the time not being very good as I instantly picked out where the dogs were fakes when I first saw it, which I had trouble with in other movies where it looks better. The rat and Iguana, who are entirely CGI, also do not hold up, though Chico looks notably better than Manuel.

Something about the movie I appreciate is that Chloe also doesn’t throw out her entire personality once she’s back from her journey. She obviously is no longer snooty and mean, but she still likes to wear her clothes. She doesn’t become a total tomboy or anything, which I like. I’m not against such things happening in movies per se, but it’s nice to see that you can be a strong girl character while also still liking traditionally girly things.

One thing I do not fully buy is the romance between Papi and Chloe, however. Yes, it’s nice that he came to look for her and she learns the meaning of mi corazon, but they spend too little time together for me to feel that their romance is genuine. I’m definitely not saying that Delgado and her have more romantic chemistry, theirs is very clearly a platonic relationship, with a bit of mentor-apprentice thrown in. But Chloe just doesn’t have enough time with Papi that is spend meaningfully for them me to feel they are genuinely romantically involved. I totally buy Chloe becoming no longer dismissive of Papi after being snapped out of her snobbishness, but for her to instantly also be romantically attracted to him feels rushed and not fully realized.

The music is okay, but nothing memorable, with exception of the pre-existing songs that were used. I do like the music choices, so that’s neat.

The voice acting was good, and the human acting, too. It was also neat to see what kind of tricks they could let the dogs pull off.

As far as known, there’s also no animal abuse involved in this movie, unlike some of the other talking live action animal movies I’ve reviewed on here. So that’s a definite plus.

Overall, Beverly Hills Chihahua is a standard talking dog movie. It’s got good morals, a good story and two really likable leads. Granted, it does have some elements holding it back, such as dated CGI, some unfunny comic relief characters and the advertising pretty much lying about who the central character is, but it still holds up if you ask me.

I am just too nostalgic and vibe with the movie too much to actively dislike it, despite some bad elements. Whether you’ll like it, I obviously don’t know, but if you’re curious and have an hour or so to kill, you can always try it out. Now, as for the sequels… We’ll get to that some other time.