Clifford the Big Red Dog Review

Clifford the Big Red Dog is a long-running series that has spanned books, animated series, and an animated film. The 2021 live-action film marks Clifford’s first life action-adventure.

Emily Elizabeth Howard (Darby Camp) is a 12-year-old girl who is the new kid at a private school. She’s bullied because of her new girl status. When Emily’s mum (Sienna Guillory) has to go out of town for a job, her irresponsible uncle Casey (Jack Whitehall) must babysit. Emily ends up adopting Clifford, a little red puppy and her love makes him grow to 10 feet tall.

The Clifford franchise has always been targeted towards younger children. The books and TV shows have been short and wholesome. So, it didn’t seem like a candidate to be adapted into a feature film. However, the success of the Paddington and Peter Rabbit film series have shown anything is possible.

The Clifford film does follow some of Paddington’s examples. Clifford plays the same role as Paddington because the big red dog acts as a positive force to everyone around him. His primary task is to help Emily gain confidence, but he also helps the residents of Emily’s neighbourhood. The residents in Emily’s neighbourhood were a quirky bunch, like the residents of Portobello Road. Also, like the first Paddington film, there was a villain who wanted to capture the titular character for their own selfish reasons and the climax was a big rescue mission.

The filmmakers wanted to make sure there was some emotional investment and relatability. Most children have experienced love for a pet, faced bullies or been new in school so sympathise with Emily’s plight. It would be hard not to feel for Emily and Clifford’s relationship and when Clifford was left behind when a dog catcher took his mum and siblings.

The humour in Clifford the Big Red Dog was catering for younger children. There was toilet humour, physical humour, and the typical joke of trying to hide the giant dog from people who aren’t allowed to see the giant dog. It was perfectly serviceable for its target audience.

The cast in the film were a mixed bag. Darby Camp as Emily was a cute kid who spoke like a mini adult. To be fair she was the more mature one in her family duo. Jack Whitehall performed with a poor American accent which was really weird because his onscreen sister was English.

Tony Hale played the villain of the piece. He was the CEO of a biotech company. He wanted to kidnap Clifford so he finds out why the dog was so big and how he could use Clifford for his research. The CEO wanted to perform vivisection on Clifford, but his company’s goal was to end world hunger, which makes him a little less evil. Surely the characters could have found a compromise.

On a final note, the CGI for Clifford was decent there were some moments it was really noticeable. Scenes of Emily riding Clifford were laughably bad.

Clifford the Big Red Dog was a perfectly adequate family film. There was an attempt at emotional investment and there was a cute, innocent nature to the film. The audience I was with enjoyed it.