VERDICT: This adaptation of the popular children’s series offers up hilarious gags and absurdist plotting, but a story this silly deserves more energetic pacing.
With the body of a policeman and the head (and brains) of a dog, Dog Man has starred in several popular books by author and illustrator Dev Pilkey. He makes his way to the big screen with silliness (and a love of tennis balls) intact, but Dog Man deserves a frenetic pace to match its barrage of absurd jokes and plot twists.
The movie never mentions it, but on the page, Dog Man is the comic book created by the grammar-school-aged heroes of Pilkey’s Captain Underpants franchise. That DIY aesthetic makes its way onto the big screen, with crayon-written lettering on signs and goofy jokes like a “Box of Bees” containing multiple capital-letter Bs.
But having created this silly comic-book world, replete with abandoned warehouses and secret criminal hideouts (both of which come with giant signs proclaiming them to be so), writer-director Peter Hastings (a TV vet whose credits include the original Animaniacs) too often takes his foot off the gas pedal.
A movie this silly should zip along, bouncing from ridiculous pun to wild visual gag, never letting the audience catch its breath. Instead, Dog Man periodically slows down to develop character and motivation; that’s not impossible for a movie whose villains include an evil, titanium-armored aquarium fish (voiced, irritatingly, by Ricky Gervais), but it’s a balance the film never successfully strikes.
We open with a police officer and his devoted dog getting caught in a terrible car accident while in pursuit of Petey (Pete Davidson), “the evilest cat in the world.” When doctors can’t save the cop’s head or the dog’s body, they decide to graft the surviving parts together to create Dog Man, who’s essentially a canine who can walk upright.
Working for (and licking the face of) the ever-yelling Chief (Lil Rel Howery), Dog Man eludes Petey’s anti-dog inventions (a giant vacuum cleaner, a giant bone-hurler) and arrests his nemesis over and over again, only for Petey to escape from Cat Prison every time, beginning the cycle anew.
Petey throws a wrench into this pattern by attempting to clone himself to create the perfect assistant. What he winds up with is Lil’ Petey (Lucas Hopkins Calderon), an adorable kitty who does not yet possess Petey’s cynical, villainous worldview.
Thoroughly annoyed by his wide-eyed younger self, Petey contrives to leave Lil’ Petey out in the street, where he’s eventually rescued by Dog Man, of course. Can Petey and Lil’ Petey work out their daddy issues? Will the chief declare his love for ubiquitous TV news reporter Sarah Hatoff (Isla Fisher)? And will all of this be rendered moot if that fish destroys the city?
The on-point voice cast goes a long way toward making these plot points matter, from Davidson’s delightful grouchiness (he’s matched by Stephen Root, as Petey’s even-grouchier deadbeat dad) to the repartee between Howery’s chief and his seen-it-all assistant, voiced by the brilliant Luenell.
The ensemble features several stand-out veteran voice actors (including Laraine Newman, Cheri Oteri, Kate Micucci, and Cam Clarke), but first-timer Hopkins Calderon is a real standout: Lil’ Petey is sweet even when he’s annoying, and when the character is heartbroken, the actor never overplays the treacle.
Dog Man offers inventiveness galore, from its goofy wordplay (a search for a missing cat takes our hero to the Yarn Yurt and The Indifference Store) to the childlike naivete of the character design and locations (the city features an ocean, a volcano, tar pits, and loop-de-loop bridges that are forever under construction), all of which should tickle kids and amuse adults. It’s just disappointing that all of that goes into a feature that rarely soars beyond merely disposable amusement.
