Triple Beauty: The cutest guy, the cutest dog, the cutest ocean.

Channing Tatum driving along Big Sur’s coastline in a new movie Dog from MGM that hits theaters Friday, Feb. 18 is a pretty universal post-Valentine’s Day treat or just a casual feel-good comedy. The movie is a perfect eye candy (the cutest guy, the cutest dog, the cutest ocean), but it will work as well for those who just want to laugh and will happily watch it in the company of their own beloved pets. That’s the real love story here—love between a human and a dog who fall for each other despite themselves.

This "road trip movie" and a "buddy comedy" follows former Army Ranger Briggs (Tatum) and Lulu (a Belgian Malinois dog war hero) traveling down the Pacific coast in hopes of making it to a fellow soldier’s funeral on time. Both Briggs and Lulu are veteran Army Rangers and they both have some issues that—surprise, surprise—reveal themselves in an acute manner during the road trip of a lifetime. None of them are good with fellow-creatures but they need each other badly (if Briggs will bring the crazy dog to the funeral, he will get another chance from his bosses).

We in Monterey County have our own reasons to watch the movie, obviously—to check if they did a good job filming and showing our dramatic coastline and Highway 1. Based on trailers available online, they did (we will criticize anyway), and the movie seems to be not only pretty but pretty funny, too. Ranger Briggs is being introduced by producers as “a filthy animal unfit for human company” (again, Tatum, not the dog), but Lulu appears to be quite a funny beast herself, utterly destroying passenger’s seat within seconds, in one scene from the trailer, while Tatum tries to half-heartedly intervene, screaming: “You’re just a demon! You’re just a demon!”  

Co-directed by Tatum and his producing partner Reid Carolin, Dog is less random a project in Tatum’s career as it might seem. It was inspired from a documentary the pair produced for HBO called War Dog: A Soldier’s Best Friend. During that project, they both got to know many in the Army Ranger community who work in special operations with their dogs. And Tatum, according to a press release from the Monterey County Film Commission, during a tough time in his life, lost his real-life longtime best friend, his dog Lulu, so the story is meaningful and speaks to that bond between a human and a dog.

The movie opens widely, including in local theaters in Monterey, Salinas and Pacific Grove, on Friday, Feb. 18.