old dogs (23 November 2009)

Charlie (John Travolta) and Dan (Robin Williams) are best friends and co-workers who have no clue about the importance of family or what life is truly about. Dan's ex-wife, Vicki (Kelly Preston), shows up after a long period of time and reveals that she and Dan have seven-year-old twins: a son and a daughter. Dan recruits Charlie and together they take care of the twins along with Charlie's aging fourteen-year-old dog Lucky. With help from a younger co-worker friend named Ralph(Seth Green), they go from outdoor activities with the kids and a rough instructor (Matt Dillon), to enduring mix-ups of medicine and even a flamboyant children's entertainer (Bernie Mac), and eventually they will learn the true meaning of life and family.

Dan, Charlie, and the kids all become one big happy family, and Dan learns how to appreciate his kids and even have fun with them, make-believing he is a superhero/king for his daughter Emily who wants a protector in her life and accomplishing all the tasks his son wrote down on his "Dad List". All is splendid when Vicki comes home, possibly wanting to reunite the family for good by rekindling her and Dan's long gone flame.

The film closes with footage of the group one year later on Charlie's new boat which he is having child proofed (as Dan had Charlie's apartment done earlier in the film), as Charlie has begun a relationship with the translator and has a two month old daughter. Dan and Vicki are back together, along with Ralph who is like an uncle to the kids, and Lucky Jr. who pants happily in the corner. The "child proof people" are downstairs in the boat while the happy family above are taking pictures, and they accidentally spill Dan and Charlie's pills in the sink. One asks if they should tell, and the other reluctantly replies, "I think I remember where they go" as they hastily put the pills in the wrong bottles, the last picture showing the whole lot with obnoxiously large, frozen grins on their faces: one of the side effects as Ralph, who is taking the photos, remarks, "Maybe not that big of a smile".