Beverly Hills Chihuahua

BEFORE GOING through the tiresome but unavoidable ritual of reviewing Beverly Hills Chihuahua, let's play a game called Blindingly Obvious Music Cues.

Question one: what song do you hear when the Chihuahuas sashay up the catwalk in designer threads? If you said I'm Too Sexyby Right Said Fred, then award yourself a doggy biscuit.

Question two: what blares out when the dogs party down in Mexico? Why, it's Hot Hot Hotby Buster Poindexter, of course.

Question three: which ballad do we hear when one dog behaves courageously on another's behalf? It could only be Heroby Latin charmer Enrique Iglesias.

“But what’s the bleeding film like?” you say. Oh, all right then.

A glance at the whacky poster or the noisy trailer might lead you to believe that Beverly Hills Chihuahuais dallying in the same deranged territory as SpongeBob SquarePants. In fact, the film is a high-tech, post- Babeupdating of those live-action Disney films – often seen on The Wonderful World of Disney– in which plucky dogs, cats or parakeets get lost in the desert and are forced to dodge savage cougars on their way back to civilisation.

This time round, the lead creature, a Chihuahua owned by a Californian cosmetics magnate, is stranded in Mexico and has to be rescued by a charismatic Alsatian and a plucky working-class toy dog. The plot is insanely over- complicated, the depiction of Mexico appears to be adapted from a lazy tourist guide, and the feeble efforts at social satire are best forgotten.

Still, children will, no doubt, love the avalanche of talking beasts, and parents can pass the time guessing the tunes. Quick, what's that playing during the scary dogfight sequence? It's Bad to the Boneby George Thorogood. Okay, that was a hard one.

Directed by Raja Gosnell. Starring Piper Perabo, Manolo Cardona, Jamie Lee Curtis, voices of Drew Barrymore, Andy Garcia, George Lopez, Cheech Marin, Placido Domingo, Edward James Olmos, Luis Guzmán G cert, gen release, 91 min**