Movie Review: Dog Man

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A delightfully silly animated comedy. 

This movie about a half-man and half-dog cop is based on a series of popular kids' books by Dav Pilkey (who produced the film). I guess as someone who grew up with Pilkey's Captain Underpants books, I have a predisposition to enjoy this type of zany humor. This entire film is full of extremely silly gags piled on top of one another. While this does make this an acquired taste in some ways, it is a taste I acquired. Not every gag is funny and some fall flat. However, the gags that do work made me laugh out loud. There is mixture of smart and clever humor with juvenile dumb humor and silly slapstick gags. Yet there are gags in each of these categories that hilarious. However, what really makes the movie work is not the gags themselves but how (like a classic Looney Tunes or similar cartoon short), the whole film has a delightfully silly and cartoony feel that is a joy to watch. I have always had a fondness for animated feature films that are simply feature length cartoons and that is exactly what this is. This even goes down to the look of the film. Though this is computer animated, the artists have done a great joy capturing Pilkey's delightfully cartoony art style. This art style brings us back to being kids ourselves and puts us in the right state of mind to enjoy something as silly as this movie. 

Despite all the silly gags, this film has a real heart to it. The relationship between Dog Man and the main villain's "son" is actually rather touching and many charmingly sweet moments come out of this. I found myself not only laughing at these characters but really caring about them as well. 

I will admit though that the third act is too overstuffed with ideas, and this can make it feel exhausting and overlong. 

This marks Peter Hastings' first time directing or writing an animated feature. However, he has worked heavily on Dreamworks Animation's TV and streaming series including Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants and Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight. Before that he had worked on such TV cartoon series as Animaniacs, Tiny Toons Adventures and Pinky and the Brain. 

This movie is preceded by a delightful short film featuring the characters from The Bad Guys (2022). This short is just as fun as the feature.