Mike McCahill 

Rock Dog review – off-key Sing knock-off makes up the numbers

A guitar-playing Tibetan mastiff must prove himself in this shonky, haphazard animation that clearly couldn’t afford to get Jack Black involved
  
  

Makeweight … Rock Dog.
Dogged … Rock Dog Photograph: film company handout

This makeweight, narratively haphazard digimation synthesises Kung Fu Panda and School of Rock, without going to the expense of hiring Jack Black. Guitar-toting Tibetan mastiff Bodi’s protection of a mountain sheep community proceeds via riffs and lifts: a furry Zootropolis-like menagerie, a robot knock-off of Wall-E and a Poundland reduction of the Sing songbook. (A few seconds of Foo Fighters and – unexpectedly – Radiohead is all we get.)

Going solo with shaky material, ex-Pixar man Ash Brannon (Toy Story 2) composes the odd amusing sight gag, but homogenises his notionally eastern backdrop terribly: compared with the artistry of last year’s Kubo and the Two Strings, Rock Dog is like the hastily assembled toy in a Happy Meal.

 

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