Space Buddies Blu-ray Edition
Those talking golden retriever pups are back in a new outer space adventure to rescue themselves and a new found friend after they put their noses where they don’t belong.
Film making 18/25
Cinematography 18/25
Audio 18/25
Bonus Features 18/25
Total 72/100
More golden retriever fun with Space Buddies is coming to the small screen as five of those cute and talking dogs are back in their newest adventure. Space Buddies is the latest golden retriever adventure that started with a grown golden retriever that could play basketball and has now gone literally to the far reaches of space.
In the newest buddies adventure the five slightly grown puppies who are owned by various kids in the same neighborhood all have their own personalities and voices to boot. When one of their owners goes on a field trip the dogs just have to tag along and see what they can get their noses into.
The field trip is to watch an unmanned space vehicle flight as it orbits the moon and makes a remote landing to test the ships capabilities before risking a manned flight. Of course the dogs get their way and just have to go where no mutt has gone before and end up taking the trip.
After a fueling “accident” is discovered by the very scant crew at ground control for the private company called Vision Enterprises they reroute the shuttle toward an old Russian space station. At the somewhat unknown to the public Russian space station where a long time resident cosmonaut and his faithful sidekick dog Spudnick have been spending too long in space they refuel.
During the refueling the five buddies meet the beleaguered Russian dogmonaut and find out he really wants to go home to his little boy in Russia instead of spending his life in space. The Russian cosmonaut wants nothing more than to spend his last days in space and is making his faithful companion stay as well.
The refueling goes tragically wrong and the dogs including Spudnick make it to the shuttle and the Russian cosmonaut makes it into an escape pod for a quick trip to earth. The dogs make it to the moon and land for a little moon walking where it is discovered by the ground crew that the dogs are there.
The crew at Vision Enterprises find out how the dogs got onboard and send for the owners of the dogs as well as try to get them back to earth. An up and coming executive at Vision Enterprises creates another accident and tries to have the shuttle destroyed while on route back to earth because he wants the mission to fail so he can move ahead in the company.
The owner Pete played by Quinn Lord discovers the diabolical plot of Dr. Finkel and rats him out to the director of the mission who has him taken away. The dogs have to rescue themselves and one of them bravely volunteers to perform space walk to fix a broken antenna that was hit by a meteor that Dr. Finkel had the shuttle maneuver into.
The dogs miraculously make it back to earth and the heroes of the day are the dogs who enjoy a tickertape parade and all the fanfare of real heroes. The kid’s movie Space Buddies is a decent enough film for kids but that is about where it ends.
Kids will enjoy the talking dogs and they did a good job of making the dogs mouths move to look believable and the graphics are good but this is the umpteenth Buddies movie and they are wearing a bit thin. I did see they have another one coming out involving Santa Paws and will not comment on the future of the Buddies series.
The movie Space Buddies is a cute enough film and the graphics and animation are well done even though the storyline is a bit thin. The major players are all the dogs and they do a good enough job to add a bit of fun to the well done graphics and animations used for the dogs as well as the space trip.
Overall the movie is a good one for kids under about 12 years of age or so for a bit of dog talking fun but older kids and adults may think it is just silly. I found it entertaining enough to watch once but after that it just gets annoying and is not all that great but the extras can also be a bit much.
On the Blu-ray edition there is some more fun related features and none of the usual commentary or realistic things that many Blu-ray editions contain. There is a blooper reel of made up gag stuff as well as The Buddies Guide to Space Travel, a unique and educational bonus about space with plenty of factual information.
The Blu-ray edition also has two games to play along with the movie to either find Buddy trivia while the movie plays or objects related to the dogs. Each Buddy hunt plays along with the movie in a pop up window as you watch the movie to give additional value to the film.
The Blu-ray edition also has the Disney BD Live with games for the movies that you can earn points toward things on the BD Live system like avatars and other bonus features. While this may not be worth a whole lot it does give some extra content toward fun things to do like the games and challenges which makes for what I feel is the real reason they included the BD Live content on Blu-ray movies.
Other production and movie companies are not really utilizing the Blu-ray live features but Disney seems to be the only one even trying to add additional content to their BD Live with the games, messages and other things besides more movie previews. This is the one area that Disney has been working hard at and going above and beyond other companies to create additional content for their Blu-ray movies.
There is also a music video with the film but that is about it for the additional features, some fun stuff with the one very educational feature about space given from the dogs perspective but not a whole lot. The movie is fun for kids and particularly made for them as well with the two bonus additions of trivia and objects to look for while watching the movie which are about the best bonus features.
Overall Space Buddies is a cute movie and one that younger kids will like at least once but it is not all that great, more of a fun movie for the young ones. Space Buddies does have a pretty decent filming and they did well getting the dogs to do what they wanted but they could have added more to the bonus content, especially with working with the dogs in real life.