Space Buddies is a straight-to-video film that places the lovable offspring from the Air Bud series of films into outer space. Buddha (Field Cate, Pushing Daisies), Budderball (Josh Flitter), Rosebud (Liliana Mumy), B-Dawg (Skyler Gisondo) and Mudbug (Henry Hodges) are all pups whose personalities reflect those of their owners. Buddha is the king of zen chillin', Rosebud is a lovely little girly-girl pup, B-Dawg is into hip-hop, Budderball likes his chow and Mudbug is like the Pigpen (from Charlie Brown) of the group. When Buddha's boy goes on a field trip to the space center, the pups decide they want to go too, and they sneak into the facility and inadvertently find themselves on the space ship. Unfortunately, while this space launch is the culmination of a dream for a scientist named Pi (Bill Fagerbakke), it is a dream that a rival scientist, Dr. Finkel (Kevin Weisman), wants to destroy, and he secretly sabotages the flight, causing the ship to make an unexpected stop at a Russian Space Station for refueling. While there, the pups meet up with a cosmonaut named Yuri (Diedrich Bader), who has been in space for many years and it shows. He's a little looney, but his pet dog Spudnick (Jason Earles) is not and longs for nothing more than to return to Earth and be with his boy. Together, they team up to escape the space station, but not if Yuri can help it!

The pups manage to reboard their ship and Yuri's space station blows up through some mishaps, but he is able to escape on a rescue pod and eventually lands safely on Earth. Meanwhile, the pups travel on to the moon and take "one small step for Dog, one giant leap for Dogkind." Naturally, more craziness ensues before they make it safely back to Earth, but with the help of Pi's clever pet ferret by the name of Gravity (Saturday Night Live's Amy Sedaris), the group find their way back home.

I'll admit, I am firmly not in this movie's demographic, nor do I have any children who are. However, I found the movie far more enjoyable than I expected. Sure, there were silly jokes and the speaking dogs with their CG animated mouths were more than a little eerie, but overall, it was a cute film. Watching the movie on Blu-ray, however, made the CG in the film a little more obvious. Not the mouths necessarily, but when the dogs are walking on the moon, it was a bit painful to watch. Kids probably wouldn't notice, but we surely did. As for special features, they were kind of lean, but kids will get a kick out of them. There's a music video by Alyson Stoner for "Dancing in the Moonlight" plus a blooper reel that we really enjoyed. It contained real bloopers as well as orchestrated ones with the dogs flubbing their lines and moves. Funny stuff. There's also Buddy Facts, The Buddies' Guide to Space Travel, plus a Buddy Finder, to round things out and keep the kidlets busy for a while.

While Space Buddies won't be winning any Academy Awards, it's a fun little movie and won't be too painful for parents to watch. If your child has been a fan of the Air Bud series and its sequels, there's no reason not to pick this one up, as well, as it's a continuation of a formula that works. Because of the weird looking CG elements, I find it hard to recommend the Blu-ray version over the DVD version, so you'll have to make that choice for yourself, but this is a fun little movie that is guaranteed to keep the younger set busy for a while.