Dog And Dolphin ‘Zeus And Roxanne’ Immersed In Overacting While Lacking The Magic Vital To A Children’s Film

Let’s take a meeting.

It’s high-concept time around the conference table in Hollywood.

As all eyes rest on you, you rack your brain for a megablockbuster idea. And then it begins to take shape.

If “Benji,” starring a scruffy mutt, was such a hit, and if “Free Willy,” starring a scruffy whale, was such a hit, what about a turf-and-surf adventure starring not one, but two animals?

But which two?

Perhaps a hen and a herring? A ferret and a flounder?

And finally it comes to you: a dog and dolphin.

Yes!

The results are now visible on the screen under the title “Zeus and Roxanne.”

And it is possible to see that between dream and realization, something went very, very wrong.

Zeus is a scruffy dog, the pet of Terry Barnett (Steve Guttenberg), a widower suffering from composer’s block and under the motherly care of his precocious little boy, Jordan (Miko Hughes). Roxanne is a dolphin, under study by Mary Beth Dunhill (Kathleen Quinlan), a marine biologist who is also the unattached mother of two daughters wavering between childhood and wild adolescence.

Neighbors in a Caribbean setting, dad and mom meet cute when his dog chases her cat. Dog and dolphin meet cute when canine stows away aboard mom’s boat.

Complicating matters is a hissable villain in the form of a marine biologist (Arnold Vosloo) competing with mom for grants, given to flouting the laws intended to protect dolphins and covetous of the interspecies communication that seems to have sprung up between Zeus and Roxanne.

Meanwhile, all the children are conniving to push their respective parents, ready or not, into romance.

As directed by George Miller (“The Man From Snowy River”) and written by Tom Benedek (“Cocoon” and some of “Free Willy”), this is the story that asks the question posed by one of the girls: “If a dog and a dolphin can get along, why not our mom and his dad?”

No need to worry about the answer to that one. The difficulty lies in enduring the proceedings until the grand finale, when the once captive Roxanne, bridal bouquet in beak, swims off to join a dolphin pod in the wild, just as Mary Beth had encouraged her.

From the moment Zeus, actually played by three Portuguese Podengos, appears on screen, coyly cocking his head, raising his paws, sticking out his tongue and emitting pitiable whines, the interspecies signal of this film is that it is to be badly overacted.

The tale of friendship between dog and dolphin never reaches the level of enchantment that is the sine qua non of enduring children’s fiction, the scenes among the children suffer from the cutes, the scientific conflict remains on the level of a comic strip, and the romance between the adults serves only as a reminder that both Quinlan (“Apollo 13”) and Guttenberg (“Diner,” et al.) have been seen to far better advantage.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “ZEUS AND ROXANNE” Locations: Lincoln Heights, North Division and Coeur d’Alene cinemas. Credits: Directed by George Miller, starring Steve Guttenberg, Kathleen Quinlan, Arnold Vosloo, Dawn McMillan, Miko Hughes, Majandra Delfino and Jessica Howell. Running time: 1:38 Rating: PG