Cats & Dogs **** 1/2

James (age 6): ***** 5 stars. I liked the part where the 7,000 mice get sprayed with the sickness and take it out into the world. And I liked the ninja cats.

Jupiter (age 4): ***** E stars. E stars is even more than google stars. I thought it was funny when the sister took the cat to her house with the other sisters and they put outfits on the cat and took his picture. That was so funny. That part right after the sweet part. The sweet part was when the whole family was together playing with the ball.

Justice (age 2): Google stars. I love you (mama.) I love movies about you.

Popi: *** It made me kind of yearn for Abbot & Costello. It wasn't like Monsters Inc. where there was a whole level meant for adults, but I laughed out loud in a couple of spots. I liked that old dead guy in the bed, and how the evil Mr. Tinkles still has to get a bath and wear that maid's uniform. That made me laugh. And I guess we get to feel some of Mr. Tinkles pain. And it was funny when they take Mr. Mason back to his factory and just the visual of all of those i.v.'s and oxygen bottles strapped to his wheelchair--I thought that was pretty funny. You could tell they were having a good time making that part of the movie. The hairless dog who did high-tech was cute. Weird how they put so little thought into the central character of Lou. He didn't have any lessons to learn or reasons to grow. He was just a puppy, I guess. Pretty boring. All the joy was in the set-up. Once you figured out how everything was going to play. Now I have to eat my dinner while it's hot.

Mama: ** 1/2 After a spate of movies that seemed targeted at James it was time for a Jupiter movie. There were some complicated negotiations that went on this morning--i.e. if James got to watch Tom & Jerry in the morning, Jupiter would get to pick tonights movie. We've been dogsitting Milly the Spaniel this past week, and Jupiter has had playdates with Izzy a couple weeks ago, and then Emma, both of whom have cats, so she's become obsessed with having a pet. She surfs the internet for cats to adopt and I finally got her to quit hounding me about adopting a cat TOMORROW by reminding her that we would be going on vacation int he summer, and we had to wait until we got home to really talk about adopting a cat. So Dogs & Cats seemed right up her alley. It was a pastiche of a spy movie, with lots of stuff that went completely over the kids heads. We kept pausing the movie to explain things, like "See, a secret agent dog was supposed to protect the family because the Popi is a scientist who is trying to invent a cure for dog allergies. And see, the dogs want humans to be cured of dog allergies, because then all humans will want dogs and not cats. But instead of sending a secret agent dog, Lou got sent to the family and he's just a puppy and doesn't know how to be a secret agent." The kids seemed very interested in having us explain all of this though, and they certainly enjoyed the movie (except for Justice who clomped around in her Popi's shoes.) There were lots of slapstick moments, dogs slamming into window, walls and boomerangs that got laughs out of Jupiter and Popi, and I always laughed at the moments when a human jogged by and the dog agents put away their spy equipment and started sniffing each others butts. There was a real extravaganza at the end involving fire, an explosion and fake snow and I think both Adam and I dozed off during that. But when Lou is seemingly dead in the boy's arms, I know the formula was working on Jupiter, and when he came back to life, the old tricks were made new in a four-year-old's eyes.