Review: Dog Man
He's a supa cop and a very good boy.
This year’s nominees for Best Animated Feature showcase what a groundbreaking year 2024 was for animated films. Both Pixar and DreamWorks delivered ambitious, soulful masterpieces with Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot. Memoir of a Snail’s handcrafted aesthetic is a tangible reminder of its characters’ fragility and beauty. And the indie adventure Flow is a thrilling and moving reminder of the reality that if we don’t live together, we’ll die alone. It was a great year for the medium’s versatility and depth.
It’s tempting to think that Dog Man is a step back, a return to slapstick comedy and dumb jokes aimed squarely at the middle school set. And there would probably be a legitimate argument for that except for one fact: Dog Man is really funny. Its bad puns and juvenile aesthetic capture the gleefully silly tone of Dav Pilkey’s graphic novels and its stupidity is just smart enough that parents might be surprised how much they end up laughing.
Dog Man gets his origin story in the film’s opening minutes, when Police Officer Knight and his dog Greg are pursuing Petey, “the world’s most evilest cat” through the streets of Ohkay City. When a bomb disposal goes wrong, the two find themselves in the operating room, where the doctors declare that Officer Knight’s head no longer works, and neither does Greg’s body. Their solution: sew the canine’s head to the cop’s body, combining their strengths and creating the ultimate “supa cop.”
The conceit behind the Dog Man graphic novels is that they’re comic books written by George and Harold, the fifth grade heroes of Pilkey’s popular Captain Underpants stories. The books have a purposefully juvenile aesthetic, as if every character and scene was scribbled in the margins of a spiral notebook. The images are packed with dumb jokes, bad puns and over-the-top silliness that you’d expect from its pint-sized “authors.”
Dog Man doesn’t include this framing device – a strange choice given that it’s from the same studio as 2017’s very funny Captain Underpants movie – but the books’ fans will likely already go in with that knowledge. And director Peter Hastings might use CGI to bring the world of Dog Man to life, but he keeps that same hand-drawn aesthetic, from the blunt names adorning every building (the police station simply says “Copz”) to the onomatopoeic words that burst across the screen like in the old Batman show.
The film moves with a sugared-up energy, bursting through Dog Man’s origin before calling attention to a montage of the hybrid hero battling Petey’s dastardly contraptions (which, of course, include a giant mailman, exploding squirrel shooters, and a massive vacuum). There’s a subplot about Petey creating a clone of himself, Lil’ Petey, and then becoming frustrated when the cloning machine’s instructions tell him to “wait 18 years for your clone to reach maturity.” Petey’s crusty old dad (Stephen Root) makes an appearance, and everything builds to a climax in which Dog Man fights a telekinetic fish voiced by Ricky Gervais, who brings giant skyscrapers to life by coating them in “living spray.”
In a medium often reaching for new levels of emotional impact and photorealism, it’s fun to have a piffle of a film that wants nothing more than to be silly. Dog Man’s protagonist never speaks, allowing him to be a fully cartoon character, and his silence is balanced by Pete Davidson’s idiotic babbling energy as Petey the Cat and by Gervais’ droll delivery as Flippy the evil fish. Lil Rel Howery is also a lot of fun Dog Man’s best friend, the Chief, who has the short fuse of a police captain from a 1980s police movie and absolutely hates it when Dog Man licks his face. Despite the rampant silliness, there’s still time for some genuine heart as Dog Man finds a new group of friends and Petey bonds with his clone. Kids will love the way the film tears through several of the books during its 90-minute runtime, and adults will enjoy the rapid-fire jokes and endless sight gags.
That said, the film’s unflagging energy can be exhausting as the film passes the hour mark, and it’s possible this might have worked better as a series of 20-minute episodes on Netflix. So much story and so many gags are packed into its runtime that I was a bit worn out by the end, although I should note that my kids – both big fans of Pilkey’s books – had no complaints. It doesn’t quite hit the juvenile bliss of Captain Underpants, but it’s a funny and likable placeholder until Dreamworks decides to return to those adventures.