Snow Dogs

Bequeathed an inheritance in Alaska, Miami dentist Ted 'Hot Smile' Brooks (Gooding) - an adoptee - hops across the continent for the reading of the will. There he finds (a) an attractive woman, (b) a team of huskies, (c) the call of the wild, and (d) his old man Thunder Jack. In this family, it's the father who's the true bastard. He's also as white as James Coburn's teeth. Determined to prove himself, Ted stays on and enters the Arctic Challenge dog sleigh race. This dire, utterly artificial and painfully predictable Disney movie must have been rushed into production to beat the threatened actors' strikes in 2001. Colour bland, if not entirely colour blind, it surely wouldn't have made any less sense with a white actor in the lead. Most of the nominal humour rests on the city slicker getting in touch with nature and falling flat on his face (Ted is variously chased by dogs, women and grizzlies). But the gusto with which Gooding performs these indignities is uncomfortably reminiscent of Hollywood's inglorious Stepin Fetchit days. Cuba, you know you're better than this!