Air Bud

Air Bud

Do movies exist that you just loathe seeing? As a matter of fact there are though sometimes I’m taken aback. That happened again the other night. I went to a multiplex for a sneak preview of a movie called “Air Bud.’’ I’d seen the preview: It’s about a dog that can play basketball. I didn’t want to see this film.

But in the opening scenes, which involve an obnoxious and possibly drunken clown making an ass of himself at a kids’ party, I did begin to have feelings of hope. The act is called “Clown and a Hound,’’ and the dog is smarter than its master, nicer than him, probably smells better.

On the way home, the dog’s cage bounces out of the clown’s pickup; through various adventures it makes friends with Josh (Kevin Zegers), who is our young hero. Josh has just moved to a small town with his mother (Wendy Makkena) and kid sister. (His father, an Air Force test pilot, has been killed in a crash following the ancient Disney tradition that one dead parent is nice and an orphan for your hero is best of all.)

Josh is lonely and depressed in the new town, estranged at junior high school from his peers; eventually he becomes the team’s “manager.’’ Could he be a player? He lacks confidence enough to try out, though he practices by himself for hours on end in an abandoned court he’s discovered behind an old church the church whose notice board carries this ominous legend: “eek an ye shal fin.’’

Josh names him Buddy. This dog can get into Josh’s second-floor bedroom by jumping onto a car, climbing up on rose trellis work, walking along rooftop gutters and jumping in through attic windows where it also hides its stolen baseballs and turns out to be quite good on the basketball court, too. Pass Buddy the ball, and it can bounce it with its nose and put it in the bucket; buddy never misses.

The school’s aging janitor (Bill Cobbs) turns out to have been a New York Knicks star of the 1950s; when the regular coach is fired he takes over the team and gives em this kind of advice: “You take that dog. He doesn’t give a rat’s behind about his point average he just likes to play the game!’’ Because by then, of course, Buddy has found the gymnasium, bounded onto court during a game and scored himself two.

Will Snively the Clown (Michael Jeter) come looking for his dog? Will Josh be promoted from manager to player? Will the team’s mean star and his overzealous dad spoil everybody’s fun? The movie touches all these bases but with freshness and energy; it also is not only absurd and goofy but also completely entertaining at its climactic moments. By film’s end I was quietly bowled over: Not only can Buddy play basketball, but I care how this game turns out.

The movie was directed by Charles Martin Smith, the same star in another animal movie, the classic “Never Cry Wolf” (1983). The structure is traditional story but feels new due to good performances, tight editing, a dog worth loving and a twist on the old movie tradition of “big game.” And then it gets better, with a very funny courtroom scene involving a judge (Eric Christmas) who never catches on that the dog is trained to bark when it hears a gavel pound.

Well. Can this dog shoot baskets? I don’t think so. I especially don’t buy that it shoots a higher percentage from the field than Michael Jordan. But I do not want to know about any tricks that were used to create the dog’s basketball scenes; whatever they were, they worked. The dog wears its own little basketball shoes, in case you’re interested. Don’t let your own dog see the movie or he will become covetous of some.

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