A Dog’s Journey is a truly emotional movie. It is the sequel to the extremely successful movie A Dog’s Purpose. The movie’s basic idea is a dog that lives more than one life. He lives for about ten years until one day, he feels really tired, sleeps and dies. Then there is a scene of him running after someone in a golden meadow, as if he’s running through his own life. No matter what, he always tries to get back to his original owner.
In the prequel, A Dog’s Purpose, Bailey the dog is born for the first time and is adopted by a boy named Ethan, living with him for 10 years or so before slowly falling sick and dying. When he wakes up in his second life, he is adopted by someone else, but he wants to go back to Ethan, and attempts to do so but in vain. He journeys through a few more lifetimes until he reaches a point where he is able to escape from his owner. He runs all the way to where Ethan lives and begins to scratch at his front door. Ethan eventually opens the door but turns him away, unaware that the dog he saw was Bailey. And after a number of attempts to try and prove his true identity to Ethan, he does something that only Ethan would know, and finally convinces him that he really is his long-lost late dog Bailey.
In the second movie, A Dog’s Journey, Ethan’s son Henry is married to Gloria and has a daughter named CJ. Unfortunately, Henry dies in a car accident before she was born.
In the beginning of the film, after Henry’s death, his wife Gloria moves in with Ethan, his wife Hannah- and good old Bailey. Both Ethan and Hannah look after CJ most of the time while Gloria tries to become a musician; and although Bailey helps to look after CJ, Gloria just can’t get herself to like him. When CJ turns three, Ethan suggests that Gloria pursues her passion for music and leave CJ with them. However, Gloria misread her father-in-law’s intentions, thinking that they just wanted Henry’s inheritance for themselves, and decides to furiously leave with CJ. A few weeks later, Bailey falls sick and dies. However, before he dies, Ethan tells him to find and take care of CJ.
The movie then fast-forwards to about 8-9 years later, and Bailey wakes up as a different dog. This time as a female with the name of Molly, born in a group of 7. At his shelter, he waits for someone to adopt him, but as the months go by, only he and his brother, Rocky, are left unadopted. One fine day, a boy named Trent (who is, coincidentally, CJ’s best friend) comes in looking to adopt a dog and picks Rocky. He is heard talking to a girl of about 11 years old. Bailey, who is now Molly, recognizes her scent and knows who it is- it’s CJ! He somehow manages to escape from his cage, jumps on CJ and starts licking her. She laughs and puts him down, not knowing that the dog is actually Molly. Then, when she and Trent are about to leave, Molly starts barking, so she asks Trent if they can adopt both dogs. He asks his parents, but they say no. CJ knows that Gloria hates dogs but she doesn’t want to leave Molly, so she decides to sneak Molly out with her. And the movie takes off from there.
My favorite scene in the movie was when Molly was born as a small dog in an adoption center and is trying to look for CJ. Whenever someone other than CJ would come to pet her, she would bite them and scare them away. After a few days, the caretaker accidentally opens the cage, only for Molly to run out to go look for CJ…
A Dog’s Journey is an amazing movie. I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a movie with a good and unique storyline. What I think would have made the film better, however, would be the writers giving Bailey a few lifetimes where he was with another owner for his whole life… They did have one scene where that happened, but it only lasted for about ten minutes whereas the first movie incorporated a lot of Bailey’s varied lifetimes where he couldn’t find Ethan, giving the movie a more realistic feel (though it is about dog reincarnation…).
Whatever you do, don’t forget to bring a box of tissues because you will need it!
Aaron forced me to do the like