Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

The 12 Dogs of Christmas Blu-ray Movie Review

You might want to fetch something else.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 13, 2011

The phenomenon of incredibly successful child author has created a couple of opportunities for parents struggling mightily to pry their own kids away from the hypnotic allure of videogames. First, touting a kid’s ability to rake in millions of dollars can raise a young eyebrow or two, if only for a moment, but even more importantly, books written by kids seems to be more intrinsically interesting for other kids to read. Emma Kragen may not be a familiar name to many, and she may not have attained the sales levels of, say, Eragon’s Christopher Paolini, but her The Twelve Dogs of Christmas has managed to sell well over 500,000 copies since it was published several years ago, as well as inspire a stuffed toy line (can you say “ancillary profits,” kiddies?) and this straight to video enterprise from 2005. Kragen was all of seven years old when she scribbled the basic storyline of The Twelve Dogs of Christmas (numeralized to The 12 Dogs of Christmas for this video release) on the back of a restaurant placemat. According to the book’s website (books have websites now, of course), her father sent the scribbles on a whim to a publisher friend of his and the rest, as they say, is history. It didn’t hurt that Emma’s father was producer Ken Kragen, a well respected and Emmy winning force behind such iconic fare as the We Are the World sessions. (Kragen is also a very well known talent manager and has guided the careers of everyone from Harry Chapin to Lionel Richie). But Kragen pater’s television roots are abundantly on display throughout this decidedly lo-fi enterprise, something that plays like a B-movie version of a property that might not even be considered for The Hallmark Channel. The 12 Dogs of Christmas is surprisingly unsentimental, which may be either a good or a bad thing depending on your point of view, but it also lacks much spark or finesse. If it’s not exactly an outright “bad dog,” it sure ain’t no Lassie, either.

Jordan-Claire Greene portrays Emma (hmmm. . .), a Depression era girl helping her single father eke out a living by hawking newspapers on the streets of Pittsburgh in 1931. Unfortunately with the economy being in the doldrums (hey, that sounds familiar!), Emma’s father (Tom Kemp) can’t afford to keep her around, at least not until he finds a job, and he ships her off to whom he describes is her Aunt Delores (Bonita Friedericy, Chuck). It turns out Dad wasn’t being completely honest, and Delores is not actually family but a jilted former flame of his. Awkward. Delores is not especially well inclined to take Emma in until one of her beauty parlor customers urges her to do the right thing. Delores relents but only on the condition that Emma find work as soon as possible.

Emma soon discovers that Doverville, the little backwater to which she’s been consigned, is a town of eccentrics, and one which long ago banned dogs from within the city limits. Emma is not especially enamored of dogs to begin with until she sees the dotty local dogcatcher (John Billingsley, Star Trek: Enterprise) attempting to round up some stray mutts, at which point she decides to secret a little puppy away. In the meantime Emma’s new school life is a living hell thanks to the caustic schoolmarm Mrs. Walsh (Mindy Sterling), who seems to be on a personal mission to alienate Emma from everyone. Emma does manage to befriend a little boy named Mike (Adam Hicks), whose mother Cathy (Susan Wood) lives just outside of the city limits and runs a dog orphanage. Yes, a dog orphanage.

Also playing into this kind of cartoonish lunacy is the dogcatcher’s brother, the imperious Mayor Doyle of Doverville (the always reliable Richard Riehle), a pompous buffoon who believes his path to political celebrity is based on his ability to keep Doverville free of any canine intrusion. There’s also the school’s coach, Coach Cullimore (Eric Lutes, Caroline in the City), who is recruited to stage the school’s Christmas Pageant (hey, it was the thirties, political correctness had yet to be invented) and does so like he’s planning a scrimmage line in football.

While there’s certainly nothing wrong in any major way with The 12 Dogs of Christmas, the entire film is hobbled by some listless pacing and lack of real drama. Is there anyone who doubts that Emma will be able to bring Mayor Doyle around to her way of thinking and that the town will soon be awash in furry little friends? The film is also strangely detached at times, which deprives it from tugging at the heartstrings as forcefully as it probably should.

The best thing about The 12 Dogs of Christmas is the top notch supporting cast, which includes a bevy of character actors most viewers will recognize from any number of television or film properties. At the top of this list are Riehle and Billingsley, who tool around town in a weird dog-catching contraption that looks like it was a reject from the Vulgaria sequence in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. These two actors manage to invest the film with some much needed energy. If the writing doesn’t fully allow them to spread their comedic wings, they at least bring a modicum of professionalism and craft to their performances. (In full disclosure mode, I should mention that the Riehle family were my wife’s next door neighbors growing up in a small town outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Richard’s sisters often babysat my wife).

The very blandness of The 12 Dogs of Christmas may in fact recommend it to parents with extremely young kids who are too easily frightened by more realistic enterprises that feature more viscerally nefarious bad guys. For families like that, this is certainly an enjoyable enough outing, one that may not be especially “Christmasy,” but one which offers a few chuckles and lots of cute dogs along the way. For parents with older kids, you may have to repeatedly remind them to “sit. . .stay” to get them to last through the entire movie.

The 12 Dogs of Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The 12 Dogs of Christmas is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Screen Media Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a fairly soft looking presentation through and through, something not helped by the film's deliberately desaturated imagery in several sequences. Edge enhancement is fairly noticeable in a number of scenes, and in some of the more darkly lit sequences, grain approaches digital noise levels. On the plus side, there's a decent degree of fine detail in close-ups, and when we do get past the desaturated sequences, colors pop acceptably strongly with those Christmas reds being especially expressive. But overall this film reveals its low budget sources rather clearly, and this Blu-ray rarely approaches anything close to a pristine and sharp high definition image.

The 12 Dogs of Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 12 Dogs of Christmas does considerably better in the audio department, with an above average if unremarkable lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. There is decent if not consistent use of the surrounds, including a couple of fun scenes when Emma takes a sleigh ride with a Russian immigrant she befriends. The pitter patter of little (and sometimes big) doggie feet also pan nicely in several sequences. Dialogue is clean and easy to hear. The film has an occasionally effective but too ubiquitous score by John-Kevin Hilbert which neatly incorporates a bunch of Christmas standards, but which never lets up and ultimately becomes self-defeating. However, the score is very well presented on this DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track.

The 12 Dogs of Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Behind the Scenes (SD; 7:45). The real-life Emma Kragen isn't seen or heard in this piece, but she evidently videotaped it. Several cast members are interviewed and some scenes of shots being set up are also included.

The 12 Dogs of Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you have children younger than five or six or so, you could do a lot worse than to spend a little time with The 12 Dogs of Christmas. Older kids and adults are probably going to be pretty nonplussed about the goings on in this film, one which is too by the numbers (12 or otherwise) to ever really catch fire. The adult supporting cast is the best thing here, as well as the wonderfully cute pooches, but The 12 Dogs of Christmas doesn't have any bite to accompany its bark.