Dog Man ★★½
EVEN at just 90 minutes DreamWorks latest animated feature Dog Man is a little long.
And loud too. Why do so many of the characters in these animated films have just the one volume?
I guess it’s to keep holding a young audience’s attention by constantly yelling ‘HEY, WE’RE OVER HERE! ON THE SCREEN! KEEP WATCHING! IT’S SO MUCH FUN!’
To be fair, Dog Man does have a good story, based on a series of graphic novels by Dav Pikey, and the characters have some interesting traits with some decent laughs.
In trying to create a franchise, the film focuses mainly on the origin story from the first book.
That would be okay if the time was filled with further character development. But, instead, we get more car chases and meaningless yelling.
Fans will know that Dog Man was a comic created by the two young heroes of the Captain Underpants books, which have also resulted in two decent films.
The film was written and directed by Peter Hastings, and stars the voices of Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Lucas Hopkins Calderon in his film debut, and Ricky Gervais, with Hastings providing vocal effects for the titular character. The film loosely adapts the first, third, and seventh Dog Man books.
Ohkay City is populated by humans and animals on an equal footing. But it isn’t immune to crime and the main villain is Petey the cat, voiced well by comedian/actor Pete Davidson.
In the first act for some reason that I can’t recall Petey tries to destroy an abandoned warehouse. Police Officer Knight and his dog Greg arrive to defuse the bomb but cut the wrong wire and it explodes injuring both.
Surgeons are only able to save them by stitching Greg’s head onto Knight’s body, thereby creating the hybrid Dog Man who turns out to be a very effective new weapon in the City’s fight against crime.
Dog Man uses his new enhanced senses to repeatedly arrest Petey, but the equally resourceful cat always seems able to escape.
Petey decides to clone himself but accidentally ends up with a child version of no use.
Li’l Petey also becomes inadvertently involved in the ongoing conflict between Dog Man and his nemesis.
If you’ve seen the Captain Underpants films, you will know the animation style which is in keeping with the graphic novels. I wouldn’t call it ugly, but it’s not a highlight either.
The best part of the film is the message created through the relationships between the main characters in the only quiet scenes.
Watched at the cinema.