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It was sorely lacking in poop jokes. And by poop jokes, we mean chipmunks eating poop jokes.

Kim Hollis: Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, the sequel to the 2001 talking animals movie, earned $12.3 million this weekend. How should Warner Bros. feel about this result?

Josh Spiegel: Stupid for opening it as wide as they did. The combination of Inception hitting number-one for the third weekend in a row and Cats and Dogs failing so pitifully proves that, yeah, Americans aren't as stupid as they are thought to be. Why does Cats and Dogs 2 fail where Beverly Hills Chihuahua and the Chipmunks Squeakquel succeed? This sequel comes nearly a decade after its originator; the actors aren't as well-loved, and the cuteness of cats and dogs dies when they're beating each other up in some way. This is a huge, huge failure on everyone's part, especially considering the 3D surcharge.

Matthew Huntley: There must be someone at Warner Bros. who was smart enough to know this would happen. He or she is probably thinking, "I told you so." They probably also know who's getting canned if it's true this movie carries a price tag of $85-$100 million. Ouch.

Yes, there have been a lot of resurrected franchises in the last few years, and although some of them weren't necessary, you could at least justify their production because fans were willing to see them. But did the original Cats & Dogs have many fans? I know it grossed nearly $100 million back in 2001, but all of the kids who saw it back then are now teenagers or older. They aren't going to pay to see this sequel. The reason Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel did as well as it did (aside from being based on a pre-established franchise) was because it came out only two years after the original. Nine years is too long to wait. Warner Bros. should definitely be disappointed by this figure, but c'mon, they shouldn't be surprised.

Reagen Sulewski: I can see the logic for making this film in a purely mercenary fashion - the first Cats & Dogs film made $93 million domestic, and kids films live forever in secondary markets, plus they've got all these fancy 3D cameras to test out. The actual product was embarrassing looking though, and there seemed to be an attitude that they could just toss out anything with this title, and animals doing human things, and repeat that.

But although this isn't your traditional franchise, waiting nine years between movies didn't make a ton of sense, and it seems hopelessly dated in its references. The Hamster Dance? Who actually remembers that? And that poster looks like they set the summer intern loose in photoshop. Really, this is just proof that you can't take kids for granted.

Kim Hollis: Waiting so long after the first film's success was certainly ill-advised. Of course, I never understood the original's appeal. It's a horrible, horrible movie with an anti-cat agenda (I have cats and a dog, so I'm not pushing an opinion of my own here). I just can't imagine anyone was thinking, "Oh, why haven't we had a sequel to that movie yet?" It was forgotten the moment it left theaters.

David Mumpower: With all of the talking animals films doing so well lately, I understand why the long-rumored sequel to this movie got the greenlight. The problem I see that hasn't been mentioned yet is how vague the ads are. Perhaps this is intentional, but can anyone here who watched the first film says how this one ties back to it? There is a hedged bet here where an assumption was made that the popularity of the original justified a sequel yet there is this washing of hands about it. What we've learned here is that you have to pick a side. You can't say "This was terrible but you liked the idea so we're going to try again in a manner that has nothing to do with the first one" and expect people to go, "Sounds great!" Oh, and the ads they did choose to do looked atrocious. That doesn't automatically exclude a film from selling tickets anyway, but it is problematic to overcome. If my kid laughed at one of these commercials, I'd take them to the doctor for a batch of testing.

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