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Grab a doggy bag after seeing the unmemorable, flat Beverly Hills Chihuahua, yet another talking animal movie.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua is much like a playful puppy. Energetic, fun but messy and all over the place. Unoriginal, mediocre and flat, young kids will love it but parents may growl if they have to sit through another talking animal movie.  BHC has its enjoyably cute moments, but it’s a mixed (doggy) bag;  it strives for lovable, sweet messages yet features some of the most blatant stereotypes this side of Speedy Gonzales.

Chloe (voiced by Drew Barrymore) is one spoiled dog. Her owner is a wealthy Beverly Hills businesswoman named Viv (Jamie Lee Curtis, too brief here) who dresses Chloe in the latest fashions, gives her the finest treats and lets her ride in her purse.  Viv has to take a trip so she leaves Chloe in the care of her niece Rachel (Piper Perabo), who’s more interested in partying with her friends than taking care of Chloe. Rachel takes Chloe on an excursion to Mexico, where Chloe gets lost and pursued by an evil gang of bad men who value her as part of their dog fighting ring.

Chloe is aided by a German Shepherd named Delgado (voiced by Andy Garcia) who helps her back to Beverly Hills, but is tracked by an evil Doberman named Diablo (Edward James Olmos). Aunt Viv’s landscaper Sam (Manolo Cardona) and his faithful pooch Papi (George Lopez) come to help Rachel find Chloe before Viv returns home. All the while, Chloe has the adventure of her life to learn all about life’s important lessons, such as following your heart, true love and lending a helping hand (paw).

Bottom line-BHC is a kids movie about a talking dog on an adventure in Mexico to learn some life lessons. Kids younger than the age of 8 will be entertained, while the rest of us will snap for having to sit through it. The biggest problems with BHC are an unfocused script, unoriginal direction and bland voice readings.  It’s directed with unoriginal flair by Raja Gosnell, who directed the two Scooby-Doo live action movies, and tries to interject the same uncomfortable, artifical mix of slapstick and CG into the story. Add a baffling, wandering subplot involving Placido Domingo leading a band of chihuahua’s and it ends up a mess. Worst of all, it gets its locals all wrong - for a movie called Beverly Hills Chihuahua - it spends all of five minutes of screen time there.

BHC would’ve been far more fun had it actually stayed in Beverly Hills and focused on her adventures with her pals there (hilarious is Ugly Betty‘s Michael Urie as an effeminate bulldog named Sebastian). In addition, expand on Curtis’s role , and add a few star cameos such as Shannen Doherty or Kim Kardashian and you could end up with an amusing movie.  Instead, we hardly see any of the Chloe‘s pals, Curtis is reduced to a few scenes and we’re carted off to Mexico for some of the most blatant, obvious Hispanic stereotypes seen in some time, especially seen in the animals, including a mouse and iguana team played by Cheech Marin and Paul Rodriguez (they do get a few laughs, though, especially when pursued by the dogs). Hopefully, Hollywood has more to offer for Hispanics than something unoriginal like this.

The voice work in BHC is hardly a treat, lacking color and playfulness with mostly bland, flat readings. The talented Barrymore is wrong for the voice of Chloe, who lacks the uppity snobbery of true Beverly Hills, while Garcia and Olmos utter their lines barely above a whisper. The real voice standout is George Lopez as brash pooch Papi, who’ll go all out to help his soul mate. On one hand, Lopez, an unsubtle and often annoying comedian, is the biggest stereotype in BHC, but on the other hand, he loudly grabs the biggest laughs (“We’re Mexi-CAN not Mexi-CAN‘T” he says). Of the human leads, the attractive Perabo (yes, of Coyote Ugly fame) and handsome Cardona (another woeful Hispanic stereotype role) are hardly there but then this movie is about the dogs.

From Benji to Beethoven to Clifford, the messages of love and acceptance in BHC are hardly new. As a matter of fact, the talking dogs aren’t either. Surprisingly, all of this comes from Disney, who can do far better than this. For real entertainment, see if the kids (and adults) can correctly spell chihuahua (exactly why I’ve used the initials BHC so much).  That should get more laughs than this. 2 barks out of 5.

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