By Russ Lane
Managing Editor
As fun as talking animals might be, it only spells trouble when they start cashing in so-hip-it-hurts pop culture references.
You could call it the "Disco Duck" Theory: when DJ Rick Dees made "Disco Duck" in 1976 the Donald Duck-meets-Donna Summer song was a powerful death knell for the disco era and turned a genre begun in the underground scene into a cartoonish mess few could take seriously.
Fast-forward 25 years to "Cats and Dogs," the latest movie boasting talking animals as its novelty. An animated feature set in "real world" suburbs, the film mixes timeless cat-and-dog conflicts with secret agent schtick -- not to mention a fortune in special effects.
One of the film's best fight sequences features the canine star, Lou (voiced by Tobey Maguire), fighting several Siamese Cat Ninjas.
When one of the ninjas prepares to attack, the cat freezes mid-air so the camera can revolve around it for a second or two and poor Lou is kicked half-way across the house.
It's official. No matter how cool it was before, the whole "Matrix"-style fight scene is tired. After a cool aspect of pop culture has been violated for a children's film -- a children's film about talking animals, no less -- it's coolness is yet another sad victim of the "Disco Duck" Theory.
The "Matrix" rip-off aside, "Cats and Dogs" stays away from overtly edgy or culturally hip kid's comedy (
