PAW Patrol is a Nick Jr. show aimed mainly at pre-K audiences that premiered long after I stopped watching Nick Jr. programming. I’ve never seen one episode of the show, but from what I could gather from the countless merchandise, it seemed like a combination of Wonder Pets and Rescue Heroes. Why am I bringing this up? I just watched the 2021 feature-length movie based on the popular kid's show without any knowledge or any young kids to watch it with. I love animated films, and I am a sucker for cutely designed animated characters, so I decided to give this movie a shot. I want to point out again that I do not know anything about the PAW Patrol show, so I went into this movie completely blind. I might miss some details, but it honestly doesn’t matter in my case because what transpired before me is something that is, well, interesting.
The PAW Patrol pups, including Chase (Iain Armitage), Rubble (Keegan Hedley), Skye (Lilly Bartlam), Marshall (Kingsley Marshall), Rocky (Callum Shoniker), and Zuma (Shayle Simons), are a team of rescue dogs led by a 10-year-old kid named Ryder (Will Brisbin) that save civilians in Adventure Bay. When it is heard that the Paw Patrol’s enemy, Humdinger (Ron Pardo), is running as mayor in Adventure City, the pups head out into the big city to stop his evil misdoings. However, Chase is scared of going because of his bad experience of being abandoned in the big city. Despite that, they get the help of a street-smart pup named Liberty (Marsai Martin), a big fan of the PAW Patrol gang, and they all work together to save the city from the evil lurking in it.
The Story is bland, safe, and predictable, but it makes sense why the narrative is that way. This story is not meant to enchant viewers of any age like a Disney or Pixar movie, as it is a narrative to enchant mainly its young target audience that knows and loves the PAW Patrol show. Still, while the movie does get off to a slow start, the story eventually won me over in a few categories. For one, some of the jokes managed to get me to chuckle. They are not exceptional, well-thought-out jokes but cute, admirable jokes that are short and sweet. It should also be pointed out that the movie does not resort to juvenile humor, like too many fart jokes or toilet humor, which is such a relief. The whole tone of the story is very cutesy and fun, which may get a little bit much at some points. Still, it is honestly kind of relaxing to see the leading puppies of the PAW Patrol being their cute selves while doing what they do and saying cliched but fun one-liners like “Chase is on the case.” The stakes in the narrative are not very large. Still, they don’t need to be for this kind of movie. Sometimes, the film will even take time to have small emotional momments, even if they go too fast to make room for the happier stuff the young demographic will admire more than their parents. How can I be mad at a story made for its target audience? Eventually, the narrative won me over despite the plot moving too fast past the more exciting subjects the movie presents. It's not breaking any ground, but it should suit well for kids, and even adults can get a few laughs in an innocent plot, even if it is nothing that special.
The Characters are cute and harmless. Most of the voice actors are coming straight from the show. I don’t know if the characters in the show had more personality, but judging by this movie, they are bland but not in an insulting way, as I still found some of them to be very charming despite their lack of character. Will Brisbin plays Ryder. He honestly does an okay job as a character. While he’s not given much material to work with, I give some credit to the fact that he does try to have a broader range of emotions, especially in the few slower scenes the movie offers. Iain Armitage plays Chase, the police dog replacing Justin Paul Keelly from the show. The movie could practically be all about him as he is the one who goes through the character arc of learning to be brave and what it truly means to be a hero. I have to credit that they give him some emotional material to work with even if moments don’t stay in the film for very long. The rest of the pups in the PAW Patrol are just there to be cute, and I honestly don’t have a problem with that, as they are indeed pretty adorable despite their lack of character. Characters like Rubble, who is a little dumbfounded but charming, or Skye, who likes to spew one-liners and be as adorable as possible, are nice even if they lack exciting character traits. There is also the newest member of the pups, Liberty, played by Masai Martin. She is the fangirl of the group, and while she is overactive, she is surprisingly not annoying and very charming. Then there is the villain Humdinger, played by Ron Pardo, who is a pretty dumb villain and poses very little threat to our heroes. Still, it is somewhat fun how dumb he is, and the joke of him losing his top hat only to be replaced by another one does get a chuckle out of me. These characters are not great, but they are not bad characters to spend an hour and a half with. They are what they are: cute, fun, and harmless as they should be.
The Animation looks better than it does in the actual show, as it feels like the visuals have been upgraded thanks to a bigger budget. The pups themselves are cutely designed while leaving room for the complexities of the fur on their bodies. The human designs, on the other hand, are hit-and-miss. In contrast to the pups, they look very cheap, which I know is the point, seeing as the characters on the show had a cheap look to them to save on budget. Still, it would have been nice if the animation team had taken advantage of their big budget for the film and made the human characters more appealing to look at. The backgrounds, such as the city, do admittedly look very well put together, and it is fantastic to see such high tech in the adventure city headquarters and the way the pup’s vehicles can transform into many imaginative set pieces to help out the civilians. The animation is cheap in some ways, but in others, it can look exceptional. These visuals won’t blow people away, but they should suffice for the little kids in the audience.
The Music will not win any awards in my case, but it knows what it came to do and does its best with what it is given. Heitor Pereira does the orchestrated score and does the best job creating a fun score that will occasionally feature the theme from the PAW Patrol show. Even the actual PAW Patrol theme song will appear in the movie appropriately. There is even a decent end-credits song that features Adam Levine of Maroon 5 as he sings the song titled “Good Mood.” there are better ways to handle a movie’s soundtrack, but I have seen worse ways. The music for PAW Patrol is honestly somewhere in the middle.
This is a movie meant for the younger crowd. As far as movies like those go, it was an enjoyable time. It is not a movie I would watch repeatedly, but a harmless movie that I don’t need to think too hard about and a film that gives me an excuse just to enjoy cute characters being their innocent selves. I am impressed that PAW Patrol the Movie succeeded in being harmless and fun instead of juvenile and grating for a movie based on a pre-k show on Nick Jr. There are much better films targeted at a family audience that offer just as much for adults as they do for kids. Still, this movie is decent enough, and I wouldn’t mind watching it again, even if that rewatch is sometime in the distant future.
(Final Grade: B-)