Trilight Entertainment
Starring: Cosmo, Valin Shinyei, Kenzie O’Day
Also Starring:  Grumpy
Directed by: Tim Brown

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

Synopsis: A boy named Jack (Valin Shinyei) and his mother (Jessie Fraser) move to a small town where they inheritent Jack’s grandfather’s house, dog, and a mystery promising fortune.

Featured Feline: Jack and his mom own a ginger tabby cat named Chauncey (played by cat actor Grumpy and voiced by Rebecca Shoichet). Despite the name, Chauncey is a girl and while she is featured prominently on the film’s poster she only appears occasionally in the film and takes no part in the mystery solving. Oddly enough, the animals’ mouths are animated as they speak only a few times, the rest of the time this wasn’t done. We assume budgetary restraints kept them from doing the animation throughout (and note to future filmmakers, we prefer the mouths not to move anyway).

The dog they inherit is a Jack Russell terrier named Skipper (played by canine actor Cosmo and voiced by comedian Norm MacDonald). When Skipper and Chauncey meet, Chauncey is underwhelmed.

Skipper leads Chauncey into the basement to show her around.

Jack and his mom hear a lot of banging in the basement and Chauncey comes back up, looking innocent, and walks into the kitchen where Jack’s mom picks her up and carries her into the other room.

Chauncey is next seen after Jack and some of the neighbor kids he befriends have gotten into trouble during their treasure hunting. Chauncey and Skipper sit on a nearby couch and listen to Jack’s mom scold them.

Jack’s mom is unaware that as she is lecturing the kids she is also smearing grease on her face and so she doesn’t know why the kids keep laughing at her when she is angry. Even Chauncey breaks up laughing.

Chauncey next turns up when a couple of bumbling bad guys named Gunther (Daniel Cudmore) and Ronnie (Richard Ian Cox) try to kidnap Skipper by feeding him steak laced with tranquilizers. Skipper thinks it is a trap but Chauncey jumps right in to eat some of the steak.

The bad guys catch Chauncey in a net by mistake but realize this pretty quickly and she just walks away.

Chauncey is not seen again until the end when the kids and Jack’s mom are having an outdoor barbecue and she is telling them about something else Jack’s grandfather has left. Chauncey manages to totally steal the scene when she licks the tongs which Jack’s friend, Fred (Ryan James Keating) has been using to grill their food.

Final Mewsings: Cats would prefer to have more screen time!

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