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Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Walt Disney Pictures

Beverly Hills Chihuahua reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 41 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
3.3 out of 10
based on 22 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 17 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG for some mild thematic elements

Starring Piper Perabo, Manolo Cardona, Jamie Lee Curtis, Eugenio Derbez, Andy Garcia, Placido Domingo, George Lopez, and Edward James Olmos

Chloe, a diamond-clad, bootie wearing Beverly Hills Chihuahua enjoys her luxurious lifestyle so much, she hardly notices Papi, a tough looking Chihuahua who happens to be head-over-paws for the pampered pooch. But when Chloe gets lost in the rough streets of Mexico with only a street-wise German Shepherd to help her find her way home, Papi heads south of the border -- joining forces with a motley crew: two humans, a sly rat and a nervous iguana – to rescue his true love. (Walt Disney Pictures)


GENRE(S): Adventure  |  Comedy  |  Family/Kids  
WRITTEN BY: Jeffrey Bushell
Analisa LaBianco
 
DIRECTED BY: Raja Gosnell  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: October 3, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Graced with unusually expressive and seamless voice work by Drew Barrymore and George Lopez, the best of its kind since "Babe."
Read Full Review
75
San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
Depending on your tolerance for talking Chihuahuas, this could make for a fun family night out.
Read Full Review
70
The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen
The picture might not be as fresh and clever as it could have been, but its spirited voice cast delivers the whole enchilada.
Read Full Review
70
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Okay, the concept for the movie is admittedly lame, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with watching a passel of adorable pooches wrinkle their brows and bark while human voices come out of their mouths.
Read Full Review
70
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
This being Disney, wholesome character-building messages abound, but for once they're freshly spun as cautions against stereotyping both ethnic and canine.
Read Full Review
63
USA Today Claudia Puig
Alpo is served with a burrito chaser in Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Disney's fish-out-of-water comedy in which the fish is … well, read the title.
Read Full Review
60
Variety Peter Debruge
A filthy-rich fantasy for these cash-strapped times, Beverly Hills Chihuahua features the voices of Drew Barrymore and much of the industry's top Latino talent in a live-action talking-dog lark that should please young pups.
Read Full Review
58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's very slick and small children will enjoy it, but it has little of its model's special magic.
Read Full Review
50
The New York Times Nathan Lee
As multimillion-dollar frivolities about the pets of the ruling class go, Chihuahua is reasonably diverting. As one that happens to be opening in the middle of an economic meltdown, its mere existence feels utterly insane.
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
Barrymore's charm helps make Beverly Hills Chihuahua a congenial family outing.
Read Full Review
50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Performances are rather beside the point in a movie where dogs carry the acting burden, but Perabo is especially bland.
Read Full Review
42
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
This is not a movie for anyone who's aged past the "Oh! Cute!" phase of moviegoing. It's paced for little minds with short attention spans.
Read Full Review
40
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Coasting on lazy stereotypes, the script basically ends where it started, teaching young viewers that it's really not so bad to be a spoiled bitchy puppy.
Read Full Review
40
Austin Chronicle Margaret Moser
This time the dog wags the tale and proves, at least to Papi, that love really is a bitch.
Read Full Review
38
New York Post Kyle Smith
The film is Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The audience is the fire hydrant.
Read Full Review
38
Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
It's hard to go wrong with a movie full of talking dogs. But the makers of Beverly Hills Chihuahua sure try.
Read Full Review
30
Film Threat Mark Bell
Isn't nearly as offensive to the senses as I originally thought it would be when first presented with the trailer.
Read Full Review
30
Slate Josh Levin
Isn't terrible. OK, it's kind of terrible, but it's a talking-dog movie, and anyone who goes to a talking-dog movie without being prepared to step in poop deserves to ruin his shoes.
Read Full Review
30
Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen
Despite its superficial lip-service to self-actualization/realization, there has to be more to life than what Beverly Hills Chihuahua is putting out there, which is fit for neither man nor beast.
Read Full Review
25
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
While George Lopez, Cheech Marin, and Paul Rodriguez are funny men, it's amazing how boring these Latin-shtick cutups can be when none of them gets a single good line.
Read Full Review
25
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
Forget the metaphors, why not just make a movie about poor, exploited Mexicans?
Read Full Review
25
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Even a film as shabby and humdrum as Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which never musters up the wit and beauty of a single frame of "Lady and the Tramp," is not without its pleasures.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 3.3 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

James M. gave it a10:
It was very good. My favorite dog is Papi. He was very funny. It was very cute movie.

Cabrini R. gave it a6:
Great, but I dont think this should be a kids movie; several times in the movie the say the word gringo which means white boy (racist term) in spanish (oh and about the not being a kids movie i mean for 7 and under).

John C. gave it a0:
I was waiting to laugh the entire movie, but that laugh never came.

Darrell B. gave it a4:
If you go in expecting a very weak plot, then this movie with entice a few laughs. Not a horrible way to spend an afternoon although I won't be seeing it again.

B P. gave it a0:
Only dude funny about his movie is George Lopez.

Chad S. gave it a4:
Had this children's movie the ambition to take its theme of class-consciousness with just a modicum of gravity and levity, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" might have challenged Chris Noonan's "Babe" for best of breed: the talking animal movie division. If the high society lady's fully-grown children in Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" bought their lonely mother a chihuahua instead of a television, the lapdog and the gardener's hunting dog might have suggested to Cary Scott(Jane Wyman) that she belongs with Ron Kirby(Rock Hudson). "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" stands on the periphery of the 1956 melodrama that inspired Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven", as Papi(George Lopez) the landscaper's dog, falls for Chloe(Drew Barrymore) the high-maintenance chihuahua, but the film is too timid to take that extra step. Chloe's poolside friends drool over the hunky utilitarian canine because he's the forbidden fruit(the dog you don't take home to meet your master), but what would these pampered pooches say if the queen bee-otch(remember: a female dog is a bitch) declared her love for Papi. Ostracization from dog society? Even more daunting: Imagine Chloe's dilemma if she had to choose between Papi and her owner Viv(Jamie Lee Curtis). One suspects that madame wouldn't want Chloe to birth puppies with an unregistered dog. Although "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" is mostly informed by girly films such as "Clueless" and "Totally Legal", it does manage to smuggle in a reference to Rainier Werner Fassbinder's "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul"(German title: "Angst essen Seele auf") when Viv explains to Rachel(Piper Perabo) that Chloe doesn't like Berlin. In the German reimagining of the Douglas Sirk sudser, it's not just class warfare, but also a divergence in race(she's German; he's Moroccoan), that keeps the lovers apart. Chloe, quite pointedly, is identified as a "gringo" by one of the stray dogs down Mexico way, while Papi unmistakably sounds Hispanic in nature. Predictably, being around mutts, a rat, and inexplicably, an iguana, Chloe learns how the other half lives, and loses her elitist mentality. But how does one explain Viv's transformation? While Delgado(a German shephard voiced by Andy Garcia) regains his sense of smell which allows him to rejoin the police dog force, Viv's nose suggests a more tolerant worldview when she smiles and voices her approval about Chloe's new "earthy" smell. Unless Viv is some sort of dog medium, and relives Chloe's adventures in Tijuana, the privileged woman's newfound well-roundedness seems largely unearned; completely out of the blue. Do you know what's Pixar's secret? They make children's films that go a little too far. That's why they achieve transcendence. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua", on the other hand, plays out like "Far From Heaven" with a happy ending, sans the Brechtian distanciation.

April S. gave it a10:
It is such a cute movie.

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