Animated animal tale, about a flea-bitten mutt short-changed on devotion to humans, and embroiled in a turf war with a no-good cur. The canine protagonist's beyond-and-back experience, after being "rubbed out" by his rival, is decently inventive: he snatches his assigned time-piece from an administrator in the celestial Hall of Justice, and as long as he remembers to rewind it he can evidently live forever. This sets up an ultimate moment of gratifyingly doggy redemption when the mangy hero has to choose between his human companion and his watch-of-immortality. But the moment is soon blunted by the Sunday-school vision of the afterlife. Somewhat better is the earlier vision of hell, with a fire-breathing dragon whose tongues of flame break up into individual nibbling little rodents -- a respectable emulation of old-style Disney scare tactics. And the canine posse-to-the-rescue, a scene that takes from Disney what Disney took from D.W. Griffith, is hard to resist. On the standard checklist of animation criteria, the depth of perspective, the minuteness of detail, and the fluidity of motion set this movie well apart from Saturday-morning TV. But in the matter of fluid motion, perhaps not so much apart as would appear at a glance: the action, though not at all stiff and arthritic, is oftentimes faster than the eye can follow; the effects race by unappreciated and unsavored. And the use of overfamiliar voices on the soundtrack is one sure way, in effect, to dilute and dissolve the image: every time the chief canine and his sidekick open their mouths, it's as though you can see straight through them to the lurking faces of Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise. Gr-r-r-r. Directed by Don Bluth. (1989) — Duncan Shepherd