For once, a film centered around cats waging holy war against dogs breaks the mold, and makes the cats dumb and the dogs smart.

Cats do not smirk while dogs bumble in Cats & Dogs. Rather, cats who wish to reclaim their control over mankind--and not serve merely as pets--wear stupid costumes made by their owners and drive cars badly, while dogs secretly belong to a high-tech intelligence agency and fight to keep their place as Man's Best Friend.

After the Brody family dog, Buddy, is kidnapped by a van full of cats, Mrs. Brody (Elizabeth Perkins) seeks a replacement pet for her son, as well as a replacement research tool for her mad scientist husband (Jeff Goldblum), who is attempting to develop the world's first anti-animal-dander serum. When Mrs. Brody unwittingly chooses Lou, a civilian beagle, over Dobermans from the high-tech intelligence dog agency, old dog Butch is called into service to help Lou (short for Loser) protect Professor Brody and his lab. Together they battle bug-planting Siamese ninja cats, bomb-activating Russian Blue assassins, and an all-around nasty bunch of uppity felines who will go to all lengths of nastiness to keep dogs relegated to the backyard.

The cats are fast and wily (albeit horrible drivers), but the dogs, all in secret cahoots, have a Mission: Impossible-like network on their side, where doghouses are actually fronts for hidden rooms outfitted with sophisticated defense gear, and almost no one gets past the lookouts and monitoring systems without detection.

Aspects of popular espionage films (most notably Mission: Impossible and The Matrix) are woven into this computer-enhanced, live-action film, and for the most part, it's pretty funny--much more so than one would expect from a cats-against-dogs story line for kids and dog lovers.