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Arctic Dogs
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = Arctic Dogs
| image = Arctic_Dogs_poster.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Theatrical release poster
| director = Aaron Woodley
| producer =
| writer =
| starring =
| music = David Buckley
| editing = Lesley Mackay Hunter
| studio =
| distributor = Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures
| released =
| runtime = 93 minutes
| country =
| language = English
| budget = $50 million
| gross = $9.9 million
}}
'Arctic Dogs' (also known as 'Arctic Justice' or 'Polar Squad' in the UK) is a 2019 computer-animated comedy film co-written and directed by Aaron Woodley and co-directed by Dimos Vrysellas. The film stars the voices of Jeremy Renner, Heidi Klum, James Franco, John Cleese, Omar Sy, Michael Madsen, Laurie Holden, Anjelica Huston, and Alec Baldwin. Entertainment Studios released the film on November 1 in Canada and the United States. It was a box-office bomb, grossing less than a fifth of its production budget of $50 million, and was panned by critics.
Plot
Swifty the Arctic Fox (Jeremy Renner) works in the mailroom of the Arctic Blast Delivery Service, but he has much bigger dreams. He wishes to become a Top Dog, the Arctic's star husky couriers. To prove he can do it, he commandeers one of the sleds and delivers a mysterious package to a secret location. Once there, he stumbles onto a hidden fortress, overseen by the nefarious Otto Von Walrus (John Cleese). The blubbery evil genius commands an army of oddly polite puffin henchmen. Swifty discovers Otto Von Walrus' villainous plan to drill beneath the snow-packed surface to unleash masses of ancient gas to melt the Arctic and become the world's supreme ruler. To stop this sinister scheme, Swifty enlists the help of his friends: P.B.(Alec Baldwin), a neurotic polar bear, Lemmy (James Franco), a scatterbrained albatross, Jade Fox (Heidi Klum), a brainy red fox engineer and Swifty's love interest, Leopold (Omar Sy) and Bertha (also voiced by Heidi Klum), two conspiracy theorist otters, and Magda (Anjelica Huston), his curmudgeonly caribou boss.
Voice cast
* Jeremy Renner as Swifty, an Arctic fox who is the main protagonist.
**Anderson Lewis as Young Swiffy
* Alec Baldwin as P.B., an introverted polar bear and Swifty's best friend.
* Heidi Klum as Jade, a strong and hard-working red fox mechanic and Swifty's love interest.
**Lillian Moloy as Young Jade
**Klum also voices Bertha, a German-accented conspiracy theorist Eurasian otter.
* John Cleese as Doc Otto Van Walrus, a British-accented walrus and the main antagonist.
* Anjelica Huston as Magda, a formal short-tempered Russian-accented caribou and Swifty's boss.
* James Franco as Lemmy, a clumsy albatross.
* Omar Sy as Leopold, a French-accented conspiracy theorist Eurasian otter.
* Michael Madsen as Duke, a siberian husky employed by Arctic Blast Delivery Service.
* Laurie Holden as Dakota, another husky employed by the Arctic Blast Delivery Service.
* Donny Falsetti as Dusty, another Husky employed by the Arctic Blast Delivery Service.
* Nina Senicar as Countdown Inka, the countdown voice of Otto's machine.
* Aaron Woodley as Puffins, an army of horned puffins that are Otto Van Walrus' henchmen. Near the end of the film, one of the puffins says to Otto, "Alright guys, that's it! We're out of here!"
* Soraya Azzabi as Alma
* Jason Deline as Naz "Nasty Naz" Narwhal, a weather forecaster who is presumably a narwhal.
Release
'Arctic Dogs' was released on November 1, 2019, in both Canada and the United States.[https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/arctic-dogs Common Sense Media] Lionsgate Home Entertainment released it on DVD and Blu-ray on February 4, 2020. It made $1.3 million in total US video sales.[https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Arctic-Dogs-(2019)#tab=summary the-numbers.com]
Reception
Box office
In the United States and Canada, 'Arctic Dogs' was released alongside 'Harriet', 'Terminator: Dark Fate', and 'Motherless Brooklyn', and was projected to gross $510 million from 2,835 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $700,000 on its first day, and ended up debuting to just $2.9 million, finishing 10th and marking the worst opening of all-time for a film playing in over 2,800 theaters.Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews and an average rating of . Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 28 out of 100 based on four critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 64% and a 41% "definite recommend".In 2020, it received a Canadian Cinema Editors Awards nomination for Best Editing in Animation.
Other media
A web series set after the events of the film titled 'Arctic Friends' was released on September 15, 2020 on both Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video, consisting of 40 collections (160 shorts). Another spin-off series titled 'Puffins' was also released, featuring the voice of Johnny Depp as Johnny Puff. A spin-off of 'Puffins', entitled 'Puffins Impossible', is slated for release and is to consist of 16 five-minute episodes with Depp to reprise his role as Puff.
References
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