Beverly Hills Chihuahua focuses on Chloe (Drew Barrymore), beloved pet pooch of Vivian (Jamie Lee Curtis), cosmetics conglomerate VIP. Viv and Chloe go everywhere together and Chloe is very pampered, always dressed in the finest doggie apparel. She lives a charmed life, with regular mani/pedis and hair stylings, hanging out with buddies Delta the poodle (Loretta Devine, Eli Stone), Biminy the Yorkie and Sebastian the Pug (Michael Urie, Ugly Betty), but she isn't spoiled rotten, just spoiled. Things are perfect until one day, Viv is called away on a business trip to Europe and Chloe's regular sitter is out on maternity leave. Viv asks her lazy and irresponsible niece, Rachel (Piper Perabo), to care for her beloved Chloe while she is away, not wanting to leave her in the care of strangers. Big mistake! Rachel and her girlfriends decide to take a road trip to Mexico, with Chloe in tow. But Chloe gets dumped off at the cheap hotel while the girls go out to party and she is not going to have that.
Once free and on the loose, things take a rough turn for Chloe as she is almost immediately nabbed by a group of thieves and placed into a dogfighting ring... as the bait. She meets a number of lovable but tough mutts, the least of which is an ex-K9 officer called Delgado (Andy Garcia), who takes her under his wing and tries to help her return home. When Rachel discovers what has happened, she tries desperately to find Chloe, to no avail. She is soon joined by Aunt Viv's handsome landscaper, Sam (Manolo Cardona) and his Chihuahua pooch, Papi (George Lopez), who happens to be in love with Chloe. Papi will stop at nothing to find his corazon, his heart, and he lets nothing get in his way as he searches for Chloe, even though she spurned him in Beverly Hills, discounting him based on his lowly status.
Delgado and Chloe escape from the dog fighting ring, but are hunted relentlessly by Diablo (Edward James Olmos), a Doberman with a taste for Chloe's blood. Even as they travel all across Mexico in an attempt to get Chloe back to Beverly Hills, Diablo pursues them. They have many misadventures and even get bilked out of Chloe's beautiful diamond collar (her only proof that she is a rich pup and not a street dog) by a couple of crooked critters named Manuel the rat (Cheech Marin) and Chico the iguana (Paul Rodriguez). When Chloe and Delgado stumble upon a secretive group of Chihuahuas led by a mighty Chihuahua named Montezuma (Placido Domingo), Chloe connects with her inner Chi-Warrior to find her inner "bark," which serves her well during the movie's climactic ending.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Beverly Hills Chihuahua. It was just a fun movie. There were plenty of laughs and the acting was solid which resulted in a really good movie experience. The picture on the Blu-ray version is crystal clear and the surround sound really adds to the experience, with barking dogs all around you. There were a number of special features included in the Blu-ray as well. There's commentary by the director, a really adorable cartoon short about the Chihuahua breed, a series of enjoyable bloopers, a featurette on the voice actors, a making-of featurette and finally, a series of deleted scenes with director commentary. I liked some of the deleted scenes and others were best left out, but all were worth seeing. I thought it was really cool that many of the dog actors in the film were rescue dogs, some from Mexico and some from Los Angeles. In fact, one of the main actors, Papi, was rescued from the pound a mere day or two before his number was up and he is terrific in the movie. I highly recommend Beverly Hills Chihuahua if you are looking for a fun popcorn movie. The CG on the dogs' faces wasn't the least bit weird and in fact, it was really well done and looked fairly natural. Well, natural for talking dogs anyway. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
