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The Shaggy Dog

Tim Allen marks his cinematic territory

By TOM MEEK | March 8, 2006

2.5 Stars

HE CHASES CATS: But there's some human stuff, too.

Dave Douglas (Tim Allen, who as the Santa Clause series attests is adept at these family shape-shifting comedies) is an LA deputy DA prosecuting an animal-rights activist for setting fire to a biotech company’s lab. That’s the least of his problems: his teenage daughter (Zena Grey) supports the activist and his son (Spencer Breslin) is flunking out of school. Then life really gets complicated when he’s bitten by the “Shaggy Dog of Ageless Wonder” and transforms into a well groomed sheepdog himself. Disney combined its 1959 original starring Fred MacMurray and the 1976 hybrid The Shaggy D.A. for this entry, which could have been called The Shaggy DNA. Allen has a good time with the physical comedy, and the human moments are well placed (by director Brian Robbins) between the cat-chasing and ass-sniffing high jinks. Danny Glover and Robert Downey Jr. pop up as Douglas’s boss and the megalomaniac scientist behind the whole mess.

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