Get your tissue box out because this one will break your heart.

Togo is a Disney plus film that was released in December 2019 starring the great William Dafoe. And of course a bunch of doggos! It follows Leonhard Seppala as he leads a team of sled dogs across the wintry Alaskan tundra in 1925.

The cast of this film is spot on. I love William Dafoe. I think he’s a great actor! I really loved him in The boondock saints movies. His performance in that movie is so great! I highly recommend it. Anyway onto the movie! I saw the trailer of this movie and thought, “Heeellll no.” Because I had a feeling it was going to make me cry. But I finally finished the mandalorian and decided why not! So here is my rambling thoughts on the movie.

I’ll be honest I had no idea who Togo was. I knew of Balto because of the cartoon movie back in the day but I didn’t know the truth behind it. And by the end of the movie I was really hating Balto… The movie starts off quite intensely and we soon find out the sickness in the town and that they need the diphtheria serum In order to help. You get a sense of how serious the situation is and how dangerous. I will say though the movie was a slow start and it didn’t catch my attention quickly. It was a slow catch.

With the slow start I did take time off of it every now and then going back to it to finish watching it. It doesn’t get real intense until close to the end where it pulls you in and you just don’t want to stop watching. That being said it’s still worth watching! The beginning likes to go back and forth from the past and to present time. The past we get to see young Togo and what a little misfit he was! The whole time I was just awhing and getting teary-eyed over how cute the little rascal was! He was such a disaster but eventually won his owner’s hearts.

The journey that he had to take to get the serum was 260 miles!! The fact that they survived was a complete miracle. You get your heart pulled so many times in this movie. It’s obvious Togo’s tired and you start freaking out of what’s going to happen even though you already know what’s going to happen. Eventually they make it back and give the serum to other sledders so that they can finish it back to the town.

This is when we meet Balto and how they pull up into town finishing the run. And from then on there everyone celebrates Balto and he even got a statue of himself! Not saying that the dog did anything wrong because he didn’t. The dog was a good boy and did what he was supposed to. It was his owner who should have told the truth and told everyone of Togo! The town praised Togo for his duties and I’m hoping this movie brings more recognition to the dog. He definitely deserves it!

They realize he’s sick and his time might be coming and it’s such an emotional roller coaster. When the owner goes to leave to go back to do his job, Togo breaks out of the house racing towards him and it’s when he realizes Togo wasn’t just in it for the run, he was in it for him. Talk about bawling my eyes out! Ugh. He lived another two years after that and even though Balto got all the fame and glory, Togo was able to have a ton of kids! And a happy retirement with his people.

I found out he was actually stuffed after he was euthanized at the age of 16 and his skin is on display somewhere, which I find pretty damn creepy. He did have some glory after the run and even appeared in a commercial! So the boy was a little famous just not as famous as he should have been.

As for the movie I think the acting was quite good. Obviously William Dafoe is good in anything he’s in. And we mainly focus on him anyway but when other actors showed up they did a good job as well. The film is kind of set on a dark scale and that’s okay. Still quite pretty even though some of the graphics aren’t exactly top-notch. Especially the scene over the water and ice. You can still feel it’s seriousness and how intense it is but it’s obvious it’s fake.

The film starts off a little slow and kind of boring. But, I’m a sucker for dog movies! I stuck with it and it eventually pulls you in and has you crying at the end of it. I highly enjoyed this movie and I think everyone should watch it! A great family film or a great film to just watch whenever.