Perfectly adorable

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Admirable film.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

We have another entry in the infinite Air Bud series and it's just as pointless as any other movie. We get Air Bud find out about volleyball and that's it. As with the previous movies, these guys try to kidnap Buddy and I'm not even quite sure why. I was about to say I was glad there were no farts in this. Instead there was vomit. Please stop this. This is lame even by the standards of direct to video sequels. Of course, the original film wasn't that good to begin with. Doug Walker must be happy he didn't have to watch these films for Disneycember 2016.As usual, the movie ends with Air Bud going to the championship although I don't know much about volleyball competitions. Again, just show us how he got that far. The acting is quite bad especially this one scene where a kid just seems to be screaming for awhile for no reason. I don't notice or care if these were the same kids from the other movies. It's so repetitive I could have predicted it like a Michael Bay Transformers film. At this point, they might have run out of sports. I'm sooo glad I got to watch "Star Vs. The Forces Of Evil" to balance out the stupidity of Direct To Video Month. *1/2

First, the movie lost a star because of the inaccurate title. Buddy is a setter not a spiker. They even note that fact in the movie. It was succinct and non-stop. Very little happened in the movie that didn't add to a character's motivation or advance the plot. Unless you consider the plot to be "Buddy plays volleyball" then nothing advances the plot the entire movie. That overlooks the true plot of the movie though, "Buddy robs a... museum?"The subplot of the movie focuses on Marv and Stretch trying to steal a tennis ball sized piece of glass cut like a diamond from what is either a summer camp office, a ranger station, or a museum with a lot of sensors and a stereotypical fat rent-a-cop. How do you get past the lasers? A dog of course.But, they fail. After setting off the laser they escape but have to chase Buddy and are recognized by the guard from casing the joint (or working in their daily job or something).That's the first problem with the plan. It's unnecessary. Their main conflict could have been solved with a mask and some sprinting ability. They wasted weeks trying to dognap an MVP because they overestimated the security response. Sloppy.The second is why Buddy? They saw him display the two skills necessary for the task (ducking and grabbing a ball) while his owner stood and made weird faces (the prize in this competition between an adult and a child was ice cream coupons, which is great for Kevin, whose primary diet is ice cream but would have been a real bummer for the adult if they won). That's helpful, but why not just get a new dog and train him on their own? A stranger's dog isn't going to behave for you. They spent a lot of time and money watching a little boy (risky if the town had more than a single elderly police officer). The plan wouldn't have worked if there were a leash law. If there was one, Buddy's owners simply didn't care.They could have been successful had they taken a little extra time to think it through. They end up locked in the back of a police car in the sun on the beach while the officer officiates a volleyball game. Possibly to perish.The other plot focuses on Buddy's owners, Kevin and Kat. Kevin is a toddler who is in charge of training Buddy and advancing the plot through negligence. Kat is a teen girl who is left behind when her best-friend moves to Kalifornia. Her parents won't pay to visit, so they're probably on the East coast. The only stale moment in this rip-roaring plot is a montage of her attempts to make money. Though it has more negligence from Kevin as he allows a dog to suffer a rash after heavy shampooing without rinsing.Eventually through classic hijinks Kat has to use the money to payback merchants after Kevin let the dogs out and they destroyed some junk (and gave these shifty beach merchants a chance to gouge a child "let's round it up..." before skipping town). With a heavy heart, she writes Veronica a letter and tells her she won't be coming to Kalifornia (why a letter? It's 2003, she can get on AIM and chat with her. This question isn't explored).So, instead of visiting California she hangs out with the whifro kid who moved into Veronica's house (Jughead). He plays volleyball. When a member of his team dies or something he tells Coach (an overenthusiastic 90s caricature who has more visors that say "Coach" on them than most people have shoes--maybe because it's his actual name and they're monogrammed) to let her play because he wants to "serve her" his "spike". Buddy teaches her how to play. Some would argue she should have learned earlier; some are right but the issue is never explored. Some would argue she shouldn't let a dog teach her sports, but have you seen Buddy's resume?She plays and they do well. Or they lose. I think both occurred. They lose the last game, Betty--the team's "setter"--leaves the team to buy a sports bra. They need a fifth man! Luckily, there's nothing in the rulebook that says a dog can't play volleyball (well, no one ever checks, but the opposing team "Mouserat" never brings it up). So Buddy plays and does well. Now it's the one game tournament!Buddy is late because he had to escape Marv and Stretch. The team was doing well (behind by three) despite being a man down and Buddy only touches the ball twice for the victory. You won't notice though because you'll be so pumped that Buddy is finally playing volleyball AND THEY'RE GOING TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP.Well, Buddy is. And Kat is there with Veronica. Oh because it's in Kalifornia. But Buddy is playing doubles with an adult we've never seen before despite the play-in game being teams with children. They should have spent a minute explaining any of this. They don't. The movie ends suddenly and all you have left are questions.Overall, you just spent more time reading this review than it would have taken you to watch the movie. Don't be afraid to watch this movie, it will be over before you realize and since the whole thing is available on YouTube/Amazon for free there's no excuse. Unless they cut parts out. Which I'd believe because tons of it didn't make sense. If nothing else, every moment is worth it for Jughead's whifro.Oh! That reminds me. Jughead skateboards. It's a big thing in the movie. I have no idea why.The biggest downside of the movie is that Buddy plays fewer minutes of volleyball than it took you to load the IMDb homepage. Don't watch at your own risk.

OK, this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I mean, why do these people even bother to do a FIFTH one of this. What's next? Tennis? Roller Blading? These movies are like exactly the same as the MVP series. Everything they can't teach a dog to do, such as play hockey or snowboard, they teach the monkey to do. It's the same freaking story every time, I feel sad for the people who actually pay money to go see these movies in a theater because these movies are completely obvious and I would rather spend my money on some other movie that is actually interesting. Also, I wouldn't recommend seeing and MVP movies unless you find it more amusing to watch a monkey play numerous sports.

Well i just saw this last night. I enjoyed it despite it pretty much being the same concept form the previous films. Buddy is missing at the start of the Championship, but arrives to save the day as always. The one thing that was different is buddy got himself out of the trouble this time with out the help of the kids. One thing i will nitpick is Noah Framm why was his last name framm that was Josh and Andrea fathers last name. So Noah should have had a different last name(since they share the same mother but have different Dad), unless his father Patrick took the Framm name.This is obviously 3 years after the 7th inning stretch taking into fact that in that movie Andrea was just going into middle school 6th grade. In this one , she was ending 8th grade. I guess that would make Josh going to be a senior in CollegeIt's a film that most kids will enjoy, some adults might not simple due to its basically the same thing only different sports, and slightly different situation. This is the first they have ever done something during the `Summer' versus the school year so that was different