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Hotel for Dogs

Hotel for Dogs

Comedy · Family · 2009

Placed in a foster home that doesn't allow pets, 16-year-old Andi and her younger brother, Bruce, turn an abandoned hotel into a home for their dog. Soon other strays arrive, and the hotel becomes a haven for every orphaned canine in town. But the kids have to do some quick thinking to keep the cops off their tails.

Movie details

Hotel for Dogs

“No stray gets turned away.”

2009 Comedy · Family 1h 40m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

5.5 / 10

25.5K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

47 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

51 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.1 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Placed in a foster home that doesn't allow pets, 16-year-old Andi and her younger brother, Bruce, turn an abandoned hotel into a home for their dog. Soon other strays arrive, and the hotel becomes a haven for every orphaned canine in town. But the kids have to do some quick thinking to keep the cops off their tails.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Hotel for Dogs?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Thor Freudenthal

Written by

Jeff Lowell · Bob Schooley · Mark McCorkle

Emma Roberts

Emma Roberts

Andi

Jake T. Austin

Jake T. Austin

Bruce

Don Cheadle

Don Cheadle

Bernie

Johnny Simmons

Johnny Simmons

Dave

Kyla Pratt

Kyla Pratt

Heather

Troy Gentile

Troy Gentile

Mark

Lisa Kudrow

Lisa Kudrow

Lois Scudder

Court is in session

Put Hotel for Dogs on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Popcorn Loyalist

“It owes the canon nothing.”

The movie pursues immediacy and audience pleasure without begging institutions to certify its worth.

The prosecution The Big-Idea Head

“Easy pleasure, short half-life.”

It moves efficiently through the moment but offers little reason to keep arguing once the credits end.