Bodega Catz (with a z of course) is the latest Sony Pictures Animation film from the team behind Baby Geniuses 2: Baby Geniusers. It is a hybrid animation/live action film. The animals are all life-like, but slightly stylized so that it justifies animating them.
Bodega Catz is about the secret lives of those cats that are typically in bodegas and the misadventures they get themselves into.
The film opens up on a busy South Bronx corner. There are hydrants open and it’s clear that it is a summer night (Lots of incomprehensible spanish music playing). A storefront owner named Chinchito, played by George Lopez, begins to close up his shop for the evening to play dominoes outside of his store with his son, and grandfather. When he sits he begins to talk about all of the troubles he’s having keeping the store up and running with the rising rent costs. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do. The grandfather says something wise, and they all start drinking. As Chinchito and his family cheers, we pan to the inside of the bodega, and two cats cheers two glasses of milk together and start partying all over the bodega. Chinchito thinks he hears something, but he ignores it. The two cats Miguelito and Zippy are played by Diego Luna and Efren Ramirez. They have the typical dynamic where one is smart and the other is stupid, but because it’s ethnic, it’s kinda racist. Anyway they are getting ready to meet up with some friends at the bodega on the other corner. They head over to meet up with their friends Paco and Angelina played by Carlos Alazraqui and Emma Stone (who affects a spanish accent for the film). Anyway it’s clear from their hanging out and partying and eating the food in the bodega’s that there is a connection between Miguelito and Angelina, but Paco and Angelina used to date, so Miguelito does not want to intrude. The cats all do a bunch of shit that shows off that they are CGI.