Directed By Peter Hastings

Starring – Pete Davidson, Isla Fischer, Lil Rel Howery

The Plot – When a faithful police dog and his human police officer owner are injured together on the job, a harebrained but life-saving surgery fuses the two of them together and Dog Man is born. As Dog Man embraces his new identity and strives to impress his Chief (Howery), he must stop the pretty evil plots of feline supervillain Petey the Cat (Davidson). Petey’s latest plan is to clone himself, creating the kitten Lil Petey, to double his ability to do crime stuff. Things get complicated, though, when Lil Petey forges an unexpected bond with Dog Man. When Lil Petey falls into the clutches of a common enemy, Dog Man and Petey reluctantly join forces in an action-packed race against time to rescue the young kitten. In the process, they discover the power of family (and kittens!) to bring even the most hostile foes together.

Rated PG for some action and rude humor

DOG MAN | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

In a January already full of cinematic achievements and entertaining triumphs, “Dog Man” might be its single biggest surprise of the bunch, seamlessly adapting the Dav Pilkey series of graphic novels with an absorbing execution channeling the very energy and ridiculousness that made it such a cherished piece of literature among youthful readers. That’s not to say that the movie appeals strictly to child audiences, as the off-beat, wall-breaking shenanigans of visual humor offer plenty of subliminal sight gags eliciting laughter that adults will find equally charming, it’s just that the movie’s creativity lends itself to basking in the glow of the impossibly silly, and that desire to refuse taking itself too seriously lends itself accordingly to the consistency of both the pacing and tone, which are both unapologetically persistent and anxious towards crafting such a one-of-a-kind feeling that readers got from the novels. I use those adjectives candidly to describe the engagement because the 84-minute run time doesn’t even register in the depths of the frenetic firing of story beats that are continuously hurled towards the focus of the narrative, with just enough tangibility in the essence of heartfelt underlining that prove it to be so much more than just another wacky and zany family film. When the film is hilarious, it works because of the unrelenting energy of the quick cut editing and expressive animation that command attention, but when it really works with regards to crafting a heavy-hitting message in challenging the conventionalism of family bonding and togetherness, it does so without alienating the integrity of the character designs, whose voids and internal conflicts grow all the more evident the longer the film persists into its second hour. Above all of this, however, it works because of the explosively expressive merits of the animation, which simultaneously maintains the measuring stick that Dreamworks Animations have maintained over the last decade, while feeling so uniquely invigorating to anything that they have attempted to this point. The production has called this 2.5-D animation, and the result is something that not only captures the colorful radiance and imaginative renderings of three-dimensional animation, but also the swooshing and fluid movements of stopmotion, which blend remarkably to create something that looks like it was quite literally lifted from a graphic novel. Attention to detail is certainly one thing, but watching that world come to life is something so poetically satisfying, with textual expressions from collisions and conflicts, stylishly sleek transitions, and enticingly fun action set pieces being among their various appeal, appraising a presentation that, for once, I wish received a 3D showing of such, as the landscapes stood out like a pop-up book that enveloped the geography and believability of this established world. The remarkable work from the decorated ensemble also do a phenomenal job in bringing such vibrantly enthusiastic personalities to life, with this easily being my single favorite performance that Pete Davidson has ever conjured. In being someone who isn’t exactly a fan of his, it’s all the more remarkable how well his monotonously maniacal deliveries work exceptionally in the depths of this antagonist, eliciting him several instances of scene-stealing hilarity, until he downright completely steals the movie, but beyond that proof of his talents as a vocal actor, to which I would love to see more of from him. Lil Rel Howery is also a breath of freshly commanding air as this jaded police chief put in charge of such an unpredictably chaotic world that he’s tasked with protecting. Howery’s best moments happen whenever his character is reacting to the lunacy surrounding him, with hectically overwhelming screeching that continuously challenges you not to laugh, all the while carrying with him a few ongoing jokes that hit effectively each time, as a result of Howery’s commitment to manic deliveries. Isla Fischer also disappears into her role, with a thick British accent that obscured the familiarity of the actress. Fischer might not get as much time to shine as Davidson or Howery, but she makes the most of it with sarcastically dry and blunt impulses gifting us deadpean deliveries of the devastation that her reporter character is obligated to cover, throughout a surprisingly compelling love triangle that is hinted at enough to feel hilariously relevant to its subtle development to the storytelling.

NEGATIVES

Complaining about anything in this movie feels juvenile and adolescent, however there were some growing problems to the movie’s creativity that took my grade down a step by around the movie’s inferior third act, primarily with the appeal of the titular protagonist, and a late action shift that I wish wasn’t pursued. With the former, Dog Man doesn’t contain any dialogue to his character construct, so instead you just get these panting grunts and howls that an actual dog would make, and while I appreciate that the movie maintained its grasp on fleshing out faithfulness towards its gimmick, I found it difficult to properly invest in him, as a result of him being unable to respond or interact to various characters. The movie seems to reflect my very same sentiment, as his character feels like a secondary supporting character to Petey, during its inconsistent third act, where the character continuously stands around, without anything in the way of further characterization or development to steer him in a compelling direction. The attempt to fight this during the early scenes of the movie involves the script tapping into his girlfriend leaving him after his untimely accident, and without further pursuit of this subplot, it makes it feel so superfluous to the movie’s foundation, especially because the second half moves in an entirely different direction than what was initially expected and set-up, requiring less of him the longer the film persists. This takes me to my other noteworthy gripe about the film, in which the antagonist conflict pulls a switcheroo on the audience, instead opting for a far less compelling and blandly predictable direction to resolve it. I can understand that Petey is just as integral to this world as Dog Man, at least the way Pilkey utilized him during his series of books for the franchise, but this emerging angle essentially isn’t what anyone in the audience paid to see, and it just comes across as a cheap way out for audiences like me who invested more dependently towards Petey instead of Dog Man as a compelling protagonist. This is especially the case once the Lil Petey character moves into focus, and Petey and Dog Man are caught in a tug-of-war over custody, which should’ve crafted such a scintillating element of uncertainty towards how the conflict is going to end, but instead the movie elicits a third character to the conflict out of virtually thin air, and the film is none the more entertaining or moved by the deviation, instead opting for a world of convenience that sends everyone home forcefully happy.

OVERALL
“Dog Man” indulges in the sugar rush immaturity and manic franticness of its literary predecessor, with boldly intoxicating animation and exhilarating performances that make it a breed above the rest, with regards to January kids movies. While the film occasionally errors on the side of caution, with regards to deviating away desperately from the established conflict, the unchained infectiousness of fourth wall breaking, heartfelt underlining, and fever dream imagery prove too irresistible not to love, providing something equally appealing for both sides of the familial audience seeking something to take a bite out of their hearts

My Grade: 7.3 or B-