The third time is definitely not the charm for this children’s movie franchise, which began with a major box office hit in 2001, spawned a much less successful sequel, The Revenge of Kitty Galore, in 2010 [see VL-01/11], and has now inspired a tired, inept third outing. The premise is that for centuries the two species had been in a rivalry for dominion in the human world, using espionage tactics against one another. They finally entered an alliance to prevent future confrontations and maintain the peace, but the hard-won balance achieved by the end of Kitty Galore is now shattered by the machinations of a cabal of less popular critters trapped in cages in a pet shop, led by a crazy cockatoo named Pablo, to take revenge by sowing dissension between them again via interference in WiFi signals across the globe.
It is up to a cat-and-dog team of agents, a feline named Gwen and a sheepdog called Roger, to foil the plot. As in the previous movies, the picture is composed of live-action footage of animals with their lips animated to move as voice actors recite their dialogue. But in a clear sign of the poverty-row status of Paws Unite!, the result looks pathetic, and while the unseen performers in the previous movies were top-line stars like Bette Midler, Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, NickNolte, Roger Moore and Tobey Maguire, the biggest name here is George Lopez, who voices Pablo, while Gwen and Roger are played by TV second-stringers Melissa Rauch and Max Greenfield. The same observation can be made about the human leads: in the earlier installments, they were played by the likes of Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Perkins, and Chris O'Donnell; here Gwen and Roger’s owners are a couple of adolescents played by unknown Sarah Giles and Callum Seagram Airlie, whom their pets bring together in a decidedly lame subplot involving tennis and eviction.
The level of comedic invention is, moreover, puerile in the worst sense, as evidenced by the fact that the acronyms for the cat-dog operation and Pablo's sinister outfit spell out “Fart” and “Poop” respectively. Very young children might be amused by Paws Unite!, but anyone over the age of five or six is bound to recognize it as the sort of mediocre exercise that would barely pass muster as filler on a kids’ cable TV network. The litter box is the place for this sad finale to a franchise that once brought smiles to people across the age spectrum. Extras include a “making of” featurette titled Animal Charades: Making Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite! (5 min.), a featurette titled Cast Reveals All: Deep Animal Thoughts (3 min.), a gag reel (2 min.), and trailers. Not recommended.