Think “Guys and Dolls” + “Heaven Can Wait” + “The Rescuers,” and you’ve pretty much got the plot of “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” a Don Bluth film. The sad thing is, I didn’t really care for either of the three movies I just listed, and I didn’t really care for this movie either.
Charlie (Burt Reynolds)is a stray dog, a gambler who gets on the wrong side of the law. He also gets on the wrong side of the casino owner, Mr. Carface, who decides to rub him out. After the assassination, Charlie goes up to Heaven where he is shown the clock of his life, and how the time has run out. Charlie’s not ready to die, so he turns the clock hands back a bit and returns to life, nearly scaring his friend Itchy (Dom Deluise) to pieces.
Vowing to get revenge on Mr. Carface, Charlie infiltrates the casino and discovers a little girl named Anne Marie in Carface’s office. She has the amazing ability to talk to animals, and Carface has been using her to ask the rats in the rat race who is going to win that night so he can bet accordingly. Charlie sees a way to use her for his own scheme as well and takes her from Carface’s office, promising her that he’ll help her find a new mommy and daddy. You see, she’s an orphan.
Charlie and Itchy take Anne Marie to the race track, and she asks the horses who will win that day. After getting the answer, the dogs steal wallets to come up with the cash to make the bet. Anne Marie has a stronger moral sense than either of the dogs – she refuses to help until they tell her that they’re going to give the money to the poor. Along the way, she meets a couple she’d really like to have as new parents, but Charlie is too anxious to place his bet to help her obtain her goal.
By the end of the movie, he and Anne Marie have made up, and once again he goes to heaven. But we knew he would – that’s the name of the show.
I personally found the movie too violent for children, and a little too violent for me, too. There were some cute moments but it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
This film was rated G.
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