Directed by: Robert Vince

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: A straight-to-video entry in the overdone Air Bud series finds a group of puppies trying to thwart a cat bent on world domination.

Featured Feline: The cat in question is a Sphynx named Ubasti (voiced by Elaine Hendrix) who belongs to Philip Wellington (Edward Herrmann), an associate of Professor Thomas Howard (Richard Riehle) who uncovered clues to the location of the Cleocatra’s tomb and a legendary necklace.

Howard agrees to join Wellington on an expedition to find the tomb, taking along Howard’s grandson Pete (Mason Cook). The puppies are to be left behind (Wellington explains they will upset his cat). But as they leave, Ubasti tells the pups of her plan to find the necklace herself and use it to make cats the rulers of the world with her as their queen.

The buddies manage to stow away on the plane to Egypt and the search for the tomb is on. In a market, Ubasti catches the monkey thief Babi (voiced by Maulik Pancholy) trying to steal Wellington’s watch.

During their search for the tomb, Howard tells Pete the story of Cleopatra and her cat Cleocatra who tried to steal the cat’s eye necklace, a gift from the cat God Bast, for herself. A dog was the one who thwarted the theft and Cleopatra used the necklace to make dogs man’s best friend while cats were banished from her palace.

After travelling across the desert and finally finding the tomb, Ubasti confronts the Buddies and somehow makes a bunch of statues come to life to chase the puppies.

After all the running around, Ubasti manages to get the collar.

Unfortunately her plans are for naught when the sarcophogus turns Ubasti into a cat statue.

One of the most annoying aspects of this film is just how badly Ubasti’s mouth is animated. The animation is somewhat better on the other animals, but whenever Ubasti hisses or growls without her ears going back or any other angry facial expression it just looks silly.

The animal coordinator on the film was Mark Forbes for Birds and Animals Unlimited.

Actor Edward Hermann was interviewed by for tribute.ca about working with the cat actor. He considered himself lucky to be performing with the feline thespian and even fell in love with his co-star. ” … they’re so smart. And once you treat them as if you know what you’re doing, they don’t want to get off your arm. I would sometimes take the cat when the trainer asked me ‘Can I take the cat from you?’ and I said [reluctantly] ‘Well, if you need it.’ So the cat would stay with me instead of going to the trailer so he [the trainer] could deal with the dogs.” He then added, “He was in a big feature recently, so I was working with a ‘star.'”

We’re not sure which big role Herrmann is referring to, but a likely answer would be Mesa the Sphynx who appeared in Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, although the animals for that film were provided by Boone’s Animals for Hollywood.

Final Mewsings: For once, can we have a movie with cat heroes and a dog villain??

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