Snow Dogs

Despite deceptive TV ads marketing it as a talking-animal comedy, this amiable, old-fashioned family film is really a straightforward fish-out-of-water tale with lessons for the little ones and a surprisingly earnest and moving performance from James Coburn. Unlike affable star Cuba Gooding Jr., who mistakes mugging and eye-rolling for acting, Coburn creates a character, not a cartoon. A trouper and the consummate pro, he plays with élan the role of a gruff old outdoorsman — a part many others would have walked through — and gives his character as much depth as if he were back in CHARADE or THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST. After a 1970s prologue featuring a young Ted Brooks ...