Underdog is the latest in a long line of cartoons, comics, old movies, and old television properties to get remade, re-imagined, or translated to the big screen. More often than not these films are not terribly good, or are accused of straying to far from the original, or sticking too rigidly to the original, or some other such nonsense. I am not the kind of person who will dismiss these movies out of hand, though some will frighten me going in.

I did not have that baggage going into Underdog. Yes, I know that it was a cartoon series, and I believe that I may have seen some of the episodes in my youth, but if I did, they did not make a strong impression on this viewer. Not to say they are or aren't good, I just don't have a strong connection to or recollection of the guy. I went into this hoping to have a little family-oriented fun; I mean honestly, how can you go wrong with a superhero beagle? Well, the result turned out to be a mixed bag that fell slightly to the positive side.

Underdog plays out much like the first two Superman films (Christopher Reeve version) with a dash of X-Men's Wolverine with regards to his origin and interactions with friends and foes. I know the pup predates the metal-clawed anti-hero, but the comparison remains slightly relevant. The bad part of that is that it is all condensed into a film whose running time fails to clear the 90 minute mark. This means that the origin, his coming out as a hero, and his first battle with his archenemy is compressed into a length that does not permit any room to breathe. Like any movie that has a pretty big story to tell, any type of narrative compression is going to have a negative effect on the final movie. That is no different here.

Yes, Underdog is geared for the younger set, but that does not mean that they should be treated like they can't pay attention. I don't have children, so I may be off there, but I like to think that kids can be presented a complete story that runs north of 90 minutes and still hold their attention. Anyway, my point is that we get Underdog's origin story, teaming with his human counterpart, and sent off into a battle with a mad scientist with the city at stake in such short order that your head will spin. When the credits start rolling, you will be thinking: "That's it?" It's barely begun. Now they either have a ton of footage left over for the inevitable DVD special edition, or they are hoping for it to be a big enough success to warrant a sequel. Or perhaps both.