Cuba Gooding Jnr, playing a Miami dentist, is asked: "Does it hurt?" and replies: "More than a tickle, and a lot less than paying your taxes." The same can be said of Snow Dogs, in which he is whipped off to Alaska to inherit a sled team of huskies led by a dog appropriately called Demon.
Gooding seems to go in for the comedy of indignity these days. There's much falling on his backside in this slippery habitat, although his dental skills come into their own when he has to do an onthe-spot canine extraction to get the dog team moving and save the
life of his natural (white) father, played with bark and bite by whiskery James Coburn.
The dogs are a cute lot, too, especially the one with a digital-assisted wink, and children should warm to their antics on ice and snow, though adults of a certain age and liberal outlook may feel uneasy at the sight of a black man in flight with a big dog snapping at his heels.
Snow Dogs
Cert: certPG
