Check into "Hotel for Dogs" for adventure and familial love

"Hotel for Dogs," a family film about a couple of kids who set up an impromptu dog shelter in an abandoned hotel, is filled with many unexpected pleasures. Who wouldn't want to see a pair of pugs wearing striped sweatbands? Or watch two pooches in love, sitting sweetly side by side looking at the skyline? And, it must be said, "Hotel for Dogs" earns points for featuring perhaps the most meticulously accurate use of the phrase "deep doo-doo" ever seen on film.

Emma Roberts (Julia's niece, rapidly becoming a sparkly-eyed star in her own right) and Jake T. Austin star as a pair of siblings, 16-year-old Andi and 11-year-old Bruce. They once had a happy life with parents and a puppy, but by the time we meet them they're foster kids pulling off elaborate cons to make money to feed their Jack Russell terrier, Friday. Their foster parents (Lisa Kudrow, Kevin Dillon) are a pair of rock-star wannabes who treat the kids with surly indifference and who know nothing of the dog's existence. Desperate for a way to hide Friday, the kids stumble on an old hotel with a few dogs already encamped in it, and, with help from some neighboring pet-store employees, launch a plan: the Hotel for Dogs.

Yes, it's pretty far-fetched, but director Thor Freudenthal (working from a screenplay based on Lois Duncan's novel) gives it all a fairy-tale quality, complete with plenty of whimsical inventions created by Bruce. Friday responds to a loudspeaker on their apartment balcony projecting the sound of a can opener; at the hotel, the dogs enjoy conveyor-belt meals and a very large, convenient fire hydrant with an elaborate drainage system. (Just when you think this movie's going to totally ignore the dogs' elimination practices, it gives you much more than you ever wanted to know.)

Mostly aimed at grade-school-age kids (some young person at the preview screening loudly moaned "Oh, no!" during a brief kissing scene for Andi), the film delicately handles the issue of Andi and Bruce's grief over their lost parents: We see it, without having to be told. As the siblings plot to save their four-legged friends — and discover that the perfect human parents were standing close by, after all — kids should warm to their adventures. "Hotel for Dogs" is ultimately a sweet reminder of the importance of family and community, human and canine alike.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725

or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com