5 Movies That Prove the Action Genre Won't Let a Dog Die
Film auteur Michael Bay is quoted as saying, "Never kill a dog," and we assume that he is talking about movies and not real life. However, some directors (especially Bay) delight in killing absolutely everything in their movies except the dog.
Dante's Peak
Dante's Peak is a movie wherein stupid people contemptuously fail to escape the most lethargic type of natural disaster that currently exists. The film showcases men drowning, women having their brains melted by volcanic projectiles and children getting boiled by acid.
However, during their escape across a river of lava, Pierce Brosnan and his family frantically steer their truck toward Rougy the dog after unanimously agreeing that she must be rescued at all costs.
They've watched their closest friends and loved ones perish horrifically, and they are currently trying to ford a stream of molten rock in a dusty old pickup truck, but they must risk a burning instant death to save the one member of their family that can be replaced for about $200.
Armageddon
Armageddon is a two-and-half-hour Aerosmith music video that is notable only because it features Michael Clarke Duncan in space. In it, Little Richard the dog fights a street vendor for a toy as asteroids begin to pelt the city around them and kill everything with a heartbeat inside a 10-block radius. People fall from skyscrapers and get crushed by cars, and an asteroid fragment even strikes the vendor directly in the face.
In addition to dripping with Michael Bay's trademark "hilariously racist banter," the scene takes great pains to show us that pretty much everyone in New York has died except for Little Richard.
Independence Day
Independence Day is a movie about aliens detonating every major city on Earth and then getting their asses kicked by a drunken cable repairman and a NASA reject only two months removed from Bel Air. One of the movie's innumerable subplots features a stripper struggling to make it out of an immolating Los Angeles with her bastard child and (probably) bastard dog, Boomer.
She and her son manage to dodge a giant fireball by ducking into a closet, because as we all know, fire hates closets and cannot navigate sharp turns. Boomer then leaps into their arms an instant before the wall of flame would have consumed him.
"SCIIIIIEEENNCE!"
There are literally thousands of people trapped in cars in that tunnel, and Stripperella makes no attempt to call out to any of them except for Boomer.
Equilibrium
In Equilibrium, every major character except for Christian Bale is either shot, burned alive or given a face-ectomy. In one scene, Bale and his team execute a bunch of dogs. The dogs are shot off screen as we focus on Bale's sickened expression, even though by now he has personally murdered countless human beings. So, he steals a puppy to keep it safe, because the audience has seen the puppy's face and thus activated its invincibility.
He gets caught by a team of soldiers as he tries to set the puppy free, so naturally he kills every single one of them, because puppies are adorable.
Dawn of the Dead
In Dawn of the Dead, the characters are trying to figure out how to get food to an isolated survivor. They tie supplies to Chips the dog and send her over, because for some reason everyone decided that zombies won't eat a dog laden with ham sandwiches.
While the zombies don't eat Chips, they do follow her to the man she is meant to resupply and eat him. One of the characters, distraught, then crashes a truck into the sea of living dead to rescue the dog (but not the man), despite the fact that they've clearly shown us that Chips is in no danger. This course of action directly kills one character and arguably leads to the demise of every character.
Patrick is an aspiring author masquerading as an engineer. You can email him at jp.thomas7@gmail.com for writing inquiries or follow him on twitter @PTatGT, but he really only talks sports.
