‘Shaggy Dog’s’ only trick is playing dead

What could Robert Downey Jr., Jane Curtin, Philip Baker Hall and Danny Glover be doing in Disney’s latest “Shaggy Dog” tale?

Not much, alas. Hall might as well be playing a punching bag. Curtin and Glover, both assigned to play humorless legal types, get far too little screen time. Downey is given too much. Unleashed in full, twitchy mad-scientist mode, he often seems to be channeling Jim Carrey. It’s not a pretty sight.

The star of this new “Shaggy Dog” is Tim Allen, playing an ambitious lawyer and family man who gets bitten by a bearded Tibetan collie that’s 300 years old. Immediately Allen starts growling in the courtroom, playing fetch, chasing cats, shoving his face into a bowl of breakfast chow, checking out a dog park, and finding novel ways to use a urinal.

Quick facts Starring: Tim Allen, Kristin Davis, Danny Glover, Craig Kilborn, Robert Downey Jr. Director: Brian Robbins Run time: 1 hour, 38 minutes MPAA rating: PG

Eventually he finds himself transformed from dog/man into a dog with human thoughts. He tries to draw the attention of his wife and children, using Scrabble pieces to communicate with them; mostly they ignore his efforts to get through to them. Heavy on the slapstick, the movie tries several variations on this idea, but it exhausts them well before its 100 minutes are up.

A box-office phenomenon in its day, the original “Shaggy Dog” was one of the top-grossing movies of 1959, drawing larger audiences than Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” Billy Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot” and Disney’s own costly cartoon, “Sleeping Beauty.”

The story of a teenager who is transformed by an ancient spell into a sheepdog, it was loosely based on a novel, “The Hound of Florence,” by the author of “Bambi,” Felix Salten. It was Disney’s first live-action comedy, it marked a turning point for the studio, which began to put less emphasis on fairy tales and more on teen-oriented 20^th Century stories.

Several popular spin-offs followed, including “The Absent-Minded Professor” (1961) and the tired sequels, “The Shaggy D.A.” (1976) and “Return of the Shaggy Dog” (1987). “Professor” was the best of the bunch; after that the formula grew stale.

This new Tim Allen edition, which credits the scripts of the 1959 and 1976 versions as inspirations, does make an attempt to push the storyline into the 21^st century. Under the direction of Brian Robbins (“Good Burger”), the kids especially suggest considerable potential.

The lawyer’s rebellious teenage daughter (Zena Gray) is an animal-rights activist who’s committed to her cause and sweetly gullible. Her showtune-loving brother (Spencer Breslin) hates football but fakes an interest in sports because he’s certain that dad will disown him if he tries out for a high-school production of “Grease.” Shawn Pyfrom has a couple of sly moments as the daughter’s boyfriend.

If the movie had developed these strong points, or given Kristin Davis (as the lawyer’s neglected wife) anything but a doormat to play, it might have transcended the franchise and delivered something fresh. But mostly it’s a collection of scenes that might have worked under better circumstances, with Curtin’s sternly whimsical judge standing out as the most welcome presence. 

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