It’s not every day that you see Richard Pryor listed as one of the screenwriters for a new movie. That’s because of Pryor’s death in 2005. But when I saw his name among the seven book “Paws of Rage: The Legend of Hank,” it gave me an unreasonable jolt of optimism. If you’re wondering what the name Pryor does in a computer-animated comedy about samurai dogs, it’s because the script is attributed to Ed Stone and Nate Hopper – and also to Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Alan Oger and Pryor, who were the five screenwriters on “Blazing Saddles” Famous comedian Mel Brooks Western that premiered in 1974.
“Paws of Fury” was originally titled “Blazing Samurai,” because it (sort of) reprises the premise of “Blazing Saddles,” a movie that Brooks originally wanted to make with Pryor as its star. He was set to play a railroad worker who becomes Rock Ridge’s first black sheriff – all as part of a scheme by the attorney general to wreak havoc in the city, so he can take over (a new railroad will make the place worth millions). But Warner Bros. She didn’t want the insidious Pryor, who can shoot one line like bullets from a Gatling gun, to star in a comedy about the Wild West’s first black mayor. Executives knew it was a box office hit, but thought it was too dangerous. (The studio claimed that its history of drug-related arrests made Pryor uninsurable, an excuse that his extensive later career as a Hollywood star belies.) So they went instead for the cute, safe Clevelon Little (who, it should be said, did a fine career).
The script credit for “Paws of Fury” must be a strange and memorable WGA judging result, given that the movie, regardless of its somewhat complicated premise, wouldn’t make anyone think of “Blazing Saddles.” This movie was naughty and scandalous; This is tame and harmless even by the standards of a comic cartoon for 9-year-olds. And “Blazing Saddles,” vaudeville-on-peut with a flatulence, was a comedic shocker by touching on the third barrier of American racial politics. In “Paws of Fury,” Hank (voiced by Michael Cera), a small dog of honesty, is chosen to be the samurai’s defender of Kakamucho, a town inhabited entirely by cats. They do not like dogs, and therefore do not like Hank. But Eka Cho (Ricky Jervis), a Somali war cat, counts on her disapproval. All this is part of his plot to destroy the city.
Of course, Hank will eventually win over the feline population of Kakamocho (as well as learn how to use a samurai sword very proficiently). I think this is a lesson on prejudice, but it’s not an exciting, interesting or funny one. “Paws of Fury” is a potent, unimagined animated tale that hardly captures the flavor of slick Western comedy. Mel Brooks, who is one of the film’s executive producers, has a voice role – it’s Shogun, who says things like “there’s no business like Shogun’s.” One would want to cut the great Mel, who is 96, some slack, but that’s the line your grandfather probably wasn’t laughing at, and a lot of the humor in “Paws of Fury” is like that. Cough jokes and sit there, like furballs on the rug.
For all the “Blazing Saddles” noise-in-kiddie-drag, the most obvious “Paws of Fury” source it borrows from is “Kung Fu Panda” and its sequels. But these films are buoyed by Jack Black’s zeal and suburban sweetness (Pooh is a rare cartoon hero, like Buzz Lightyear, who’s gorgeous and ridiculous at the same moment). They are high-speed comedies with a quick and snappy wit. Michael Cera can be a snappy geek, but in “Paws of Fury” Hank is said to be a mild-mannered, shy, stubborn person. At one point, after he begins his combat training with Jimbo (Samuel L. Although this is unreasonable, he is an illusion that wears him well. This could have been a way to play the character: like a good dog who would be a badass. But soon Cera returned to his unlovable side character, leaving “Paws of Fury” as a children’s cartoon in search of a center.
Some of the other voice actors are even better, like Jackson, who makes his lines pop with cheerfulness, and Ricky Gervais, who voices the evil Eka Choo with an inverted logic reminiscent of Russell Brand, or Djimon Hounsou as Sumo, the giant ginger cat warrior who, under that wall of fur, innocent as a pussy But Paws of Fury never really figured out how to make the fight itself a comical spectacle. The film has three directors — Rob Minkoff, who co-directed The Lion King and went on to make overly slapstick “Stuart Little” sitcoms, plus Chris Bailey and Mark Koetzer, neither of whom has made a movie before — and aside from the over-chef factor You feel the whole idea of this project was that the script, with its “Blazing Saddles” magic, would somehow drive it. Unfortunately, those fumes have faded through the decades.
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