Underdog (film)

A live action movie based on the original Underdog animated series that was made in 2007 by the Walt Disney Company. It tried to reinvent a Funny Animal cartoon as a snarky comedy starring an actual dog. It bombed at the theaters.

A small police dog (fired for his terrible sense of smell) is captured by the Mad Scientist Simon bar Sinister to make experiments on. These grant the dog superpowers and it escapes. It is found by a retired cop and his teenage son; the boy discovers the dog's secret and convinces him to become a superhero under the name Underdog. But bar Sinister is looking for him to try to gain the powers for himself.


 * Animal Talk: Animals understand each other, and can understand humans, but only Shoeshine can speak when he has his powers.
 * Animal Superheroes
 * Big Bad: Dr. Simon Bar Sinister
 * Catch Phrase: Invoked with bar Sinister's "Simon says..."
 * Chekhov's Skill: Shoeshine's bad sense of smell. And his frisbee-catching, and his super-speed digging.
 * Clark Kenting: Nobody recognizes Shoeshine despite not even wearing glasses.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Several characters, but notably Shoeshine and Bar Sinister.
 * The Dragon: Cad Lackey although he thinks he is in a Big Bad Duumvirate with Dr. Simon Bar Sinister
 * Human-Focused Adaptation
 * In Name Only: Well, it uses some of the names from the cartoon. Everything else is different.
 * Mad Scientist: And is named so by the supporting crazy haired dog
 * Rhymes on a Dime: Shoeshine, as Underdog.
 * Shout-Out: Lots.
 * Several to the Superman movies.
 * One to the sequence in the first Spider-Man movie where the hero gains his powers. And the second one, in the scene with Cad impersonating an old lady while hanging from a building, with an American flag no less.
 * Bar Sinister is a Small Person version of Doctor Doom, complete with scarred face.
 * "It's clobbering time!"
 * Dogs on a date batting meatballs back and forth? Lady and the Tramp.