Movie Thoughts: Air Bud (1997)

• Released: August 1st, 1997
• Directed by: Charles Martin Smith
• Running time: 1h 38min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

A boy befriends a stray dog named Buddy, who can play basketball. Together they compete in a tournament in hopes of winning.

My Thoughts

Okay, so disclaimer, I have never seen any of the main Air Bud movies. I did grow up with some of the Air Buddies movies, though, and loved them as a kid. Now as an adult I can of course acknowledge that the Buddies movies aren't very good, but as a kid they were exactly what I wanted out of a dog movie.

So now that I watched the actual first installment of the overall series, it's decent. A perfectly average family film. Nothing fantastic, but also nothing bad or offensive. It's just kind of a bland movie you can put on for a kid you're trying to quiet down while babysitting or something. I'm sure kids who like dogs and/or sports will get a lot out of this.

But for me, eh, it didn't do much for me personally. It didn't really make me feel anything, it just felt like a pretty bland and forgettable movie to me. I've definitely seen worse dog movies, don't get me wrong, but I just didn't really get attached to much of anything here.

Buddy, despite being a central focus of the film, also has surprisingly little personality. He's just the "generic kind and loyal dog" stereotype you find in a lot of dog movies. And I don't know, I just wish he had more to him other than "plays basketball". He doesn't need to talk or anything, but even a silent dog protagonist can still be interesting. But Buddy just feels like your standard dog movie protagonist.

His friendship with Josh is pretty sweet and all, but again it doesn't really bring anything new to the table and is just okay.

There's also this subplot of a custody battle over Buddy with this really cringe-worthy clown character and at this point I just kinda mentally checked out of the movie. It hated this character and I genuinely didn't care about anything he was trying to accomplish. It was obvious from the start that Buddy would end up staying with Josh, so at no point did I feel any worry that the clown was going to win the custody battle. It just felt like the movie needed another ten minute's worth of content after the final game was over, so they made up the custody battle to fill time.

 Not a bad movie or anything, I'm sure a family watching this can have fun with it and especially children will probably like it. But as an adult there's just not a lot to get out of watching this movie alone, it's a tad too bland and forgettable for that.