by Linda Kay
Directed by: Jared Stern, Sam J. Levine
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Superman’s dog Krypto (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) becomes jealous when Lois Lane starts taking up more of his best friend’s time, but he must come to terms with his feelings and his own aloofness when he has to join a ragtag group of rescue animals who have only recently been endowed with super powers to save the kidnapped Man of Steel.
Cartoon Cats: Clark Kent stops by a rescue shelter to adopt another pet to become a playmate for Krypto. Behind him and the shelter worker is a tiny ginger Somali kitten named Whiskers (voiced by Winona Bradshaw).
A group of animals have been in the shelter for some time, including the dog Ace (voiced by Kevin Hart), PB the pig (voiced by Vanessa Bayer), a squirrel named Chip (voiced by Diego Luna, a turtle named Merton (voiced by Natasha Lyonne) and an unhinged furless Guinea Pig named Lulu (voiced by Kate McKinnon). After Clark leaves, another child comes in and the animals are hopeful they will be adopted, but the kid picks a little black and white kitten (voiced by Gavin McCrillis) instead. The kitten happily exclaims to the others, “Wow, first day! Being a rescue animal is easy and fun!”
It turns out that Lulu the Guinea Pig was a former test animal in Lex Luthor’s lab and she has built a machine to pull some orange Kryptonite to Earth which endows her, as well as the other animals in the shelter, with super powers. As she makes her escape, setting the shelter on fire, Whiskers the kitten asks, “What about me?” Lulu pauses and admits, “I’m not a monster,” and using her power she lifts the kitten from the pen and deposits her outside the door, leaving the others to burn.
After teaming up with Krypto, who has temporarily lost his powers, the team are shot down while flying in Wonder Woman’s jet and are surprised to see Whiskers waiting where they have landed.
Looking adorable, Whiskers surprises them by saying that since Lulu saved her life she must eliminate them. It turns out she has been endowed with powers as well and she fires her whiskers like missiles at them.
Whiskers then uses her tail like a plasma gun firing machine gun style at the fleeing group.
Taking shelter inside a car, PB, unable to control her size shifting powers, becomes large and smashes everyone against the windows. Merton flirts with a Garfield window toy.
Whiskers is adorable as she skitters along, using her tail to launch rockets at the nearby parked cars as she seeks the Super Pets.
As if she doesn’t have enough firepower already, Whiskers then coughs up a hairball hand grenade and throws it at them.
Krypto confronts the kitty and gets a bomb shot at him, but Ace blocks it with his invincibility.
Whiskers hacks up another hand grenade and lobs it at the two dogs, but Merton uses her super speed to grab the device and place it back in Whisker’s paw. The others seal Whiskers under an overturned dumpster. After the grenade explodes there is a moment of silence before we hear Whiskers exclaim, “I still have eight more lives!”
During the end credits there are some very cute pieces of art, one showing Krypto using his laser vision to play with Whiskers.
The shelter woman is also shown holding a kitten.
Whiskers makes one final appearance skipping past Lex Luthor, who is still trapped and begging for some animal to let him out. “Nope!” Whiskers sings happily as she walks on by.
Whiskers was included on the poster for the film, deceptively posed with the Super Pets as if she were one of them.
Final Mewsings: Don’t let a kitten’s cuteness fool you, they are dangerous when armed!
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