Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer holidays so far or whether you’re just about to go on a summer holiday. So far, in the UK, we’ve had one week of a heatwave at the end of July leading into August, and we seem to have gone back to having rain again. Summer 2024 isn’t that good so far. 😀

If you follow my blog, I’ve been checking out ‘The Dog Who Saved…’ film series. In 2019, I saw ‘The Dog Who Saved Christmas Collection’, which contains the films ‘The Dog Who Saved Christmas’, ‘The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation’ and ‘The Dog Who Saved the Christmas Holidays’. Festive! 🙂

This year, I checked out ‘The Dog Who Saved Easter’ for Easter time. And now I’ve seen ‘The Dog Who Saved Summer’, the sixth and (so far) final film of ‘The Dog Who Saved…’ film series. I’ve enjoyed checking out ‘The Dog Who Saved…’ films, even though they can be quite inconsistent films.

For one thing, the casting of the Bannister kids in the films keeps changing and it’s very noticeable. Also, the films adopt a ‘Home Alone’ attitude to them, particularly with featuring Dean Cain (of ‘Lois & Clark’ fame) as Ted Stein and Joey ‘Coco’ Diaz (who was in ‘Spider-Man 2’) as Stewey McMann. 😀

Every time there’s a ‘Dog Who Saved…’ film, Ted and Stewey are always the villains. And this is likely to cause the films to be formulaic in terms of how things turn out for Zeus, our titular heroic dog, and the Bannister family when they’re coming into contact with Ted and Stewey as the main villains.

‘The Dog Who Saved Summer’ was released in 2015. So far, no more ‘Dog Who Saved…’ films have been made since then. I’m not sure how well-received this film was at the time of transmission in 2015, but I’m getting a sense the filmmakers and the audiences were getting tired of these movies.

I enjoyed seeing ‘The Dog Who Saved Summer’ when I saw it on DVD, although, I don’t think it’s as good as ‘The Dog Who Saved Easter’. For one thing, I was expecting this to be like a summer holiday on a beach. Or perhaps the Bannister family actually get to go on a cruise like they did in the ‘Easter’ film.

Here in this film, the focus is on Zeus being sent to a dogs’ obedience school after he accidentally destroyed an important party. Though to be fair, Zeus was partly responsible, since he was chasing after a dog belonging to a rival of Belinda’s, the mother of the Bannister family, who caused trouble.

At the same time, Ted and Stewie are once again joined by Patrick Muldoon as Fred Stein, who was in the ‘Easter‘ film, as they attempt to do a heist and steal a large diamond. Can Zeus stop the three criminals whilst having to learn the lessons being taught at the dogs’ obedience school in the movie?

I don’t think the heist plot gets that much attention compared to the dogs’ obedience school with Zeus. Dean Cain’s character doesn’t really get much screen in the film compared to the previous ‘Dog Who Saved…’ films. But hey, at least when he does appear in the film, I found him entertaining.

The film also features Gary Valentine as George Bannister, who I’m glad was in this film, since he didn’t appear in the ‘Easter’ film. There’s also Elisa Donovan as Belinda Bannister. Mario López returns to voice Zeus the dog, which is fitting, as this happens to be the final ‘Dog Who Saved…’ film.

There’s James Hong as Mr. Lee, Martin Kove as Vernon, Mindy Sterling as Grandma, Francesca Capaldi as Kara Bannister and Cole Jenson as Ben Bennister. There’s William Zabka as Officer Johnny as well as the voice of Apollo, a rival dog for Zeus, and he’s owned by Vernon at the obedience school. 🙂

‘The Dog Who Saved Summer’ is not a great film and it’s a shame ‘The Dog Who Saved…’ film series concludes on a bit of an average note. With that said, I enjoyed checking out the film on DVD and it’s been nice to see the characters featured. There are times where I even laughed at some points in the film.

The DVD cover is rather misleading, especially as we don’t get to see Zeus and the Bannister family on the beach. I also don’t recall Zeus playing with a frisbee in the film. I’m glad I saw the film. It’s just I wish this was more like ‘LEGO Star Wars: Summer Vacation’ on Disney+, since that felt more summery.

At least the dogs enjoyed the film.

Cuddles: Ooh, yes! That was a nice doggie film to watch.

Puddles: Yes. Nice to see a film of classic and culture for a change.

There is one more ‘Dog Who Saved…’ film for me to check out and that is of course the third instalment, ‘The Dog Who Saved Halloween’. No doubt, I’ll be checking out that film sometime in October. Hopefully, I’ll get to revisit all ‘The Dog Who Saved…’ films in chronological order soon in the future.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂