Dog Man

Voices of: Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Poppy Liu, Billy Boyd, Peter Hastings, Cheri Oteri, Ricky Gervais, Kate Micucci, Stephen Root
Directed by: Peter Hastings
Rating: PG
Genre: Animation, Action, Comedy
2025

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: A policeman and his dog are combined to form Dog Man, who fights crime and tries to bring down the infamous criminal Petey.

Review:

Tim: Going into Dreamworks' Dog Man, I had a least a decent familiarity with Dave Pilkey's creation. My kids (10 and 6) are huge fans of the books- my son has read every book in the series multiple times. I've read the first Dog Man book and I've seen a lot of snippets they have shown me over the years. So, we brought both kids to the theater to see the film. And, as I always do, if I see a movie in theaters, I watch it again at home to give it a more objective rating. I can't claim to be a big fan of this movie- even though I wanted to be and I hoped it would be good.

I think a lot of the issues come from Pilkey's creation. The books are purposely zany and filled with humor- but it feels like too much was brought over for this film. The script feels crammed full of different characters, events, gags- it's a bit overwhelming, even to someone with some familiarity with it all. I think the film needed to focus on fewer characters and dig a bit deeper. The film's approach follows the books- throw a lot out there and see what sticks. It felt like the jokes were typically hit-or-miss. There's some solid gags in the movie, but I don't think it was very funny as a whole. The other issue is that the whole thing felt very surface-level. There never was the requisite depth. Oh, I know the movie tries- we see some purposely sad scenes with Dog Man feeling alone, and Petey's abandonment of Li'l Petey is explored. But, these characters don't feel well-rounded or written. It felt like the movie went through the process of hitting scenes that should have been emotional, but the execution of those is lacking. It was hard for me to care about anything that I saw on screen- which is disappointing because I wanted to like the movie, since I knew my kids would.

The animation is solid- the film does a great job of adapting the character design from the graphic novels to the screen. The books are kind of purposely drawn badly, so I don't think I can claim anything you'll see here is truly beautiful or engaging. The best compliment is that the animation style is true to the graphic novels, but leveled up for the film. It definitely feels somewhat unique across other animated movies, although you can see some slight similarities with other recent Dreamworks films.

I thought Pete Davidson did a terrific job voicing Petey. That's the big role, and he tackles it with humor and energy. He was certainly a standout. I do think Dog Man being mute certainly hurts the character to some extent. Lil Rel Howery was a scene-stealer as Chief. He was perfectly cast and I absolutely loved his voice work here. I know he's a supporting character, but Howery has many of the film's funniest moments and it's due to his consistently perfect comedic timing and delivery. I have immense praise for what Howery did here. Isla Fisher is fine- she's never bad, but a bit unremarkable with an underdeveloped character. Ricky Gervais was an inspired choice for (I was going to say, "that dumb fish", but I looked it up) Flippy. I don't think it's a great character, but Gervais was enjoyable. The voice cast as a whole is effective, but they didn't get truly great characters to bring to life.

Peter Hastings as a director may not have been the best choice here, but I recognize that the characters have inherent limitations, as does the source material. The movie is never bad- it just feels underwhelming from beginning to end. My kids did like the film, as they also were able to connect many of the film's events to the books. That felt a bit disappointing to me- while the film didn't adapt a single book, it seems like it borrowed heavily from several. I wish it would have taken a few more chances instead of its scattershot approach to the narrative. The movie only did $97 million at the domestic box office, so it's questionable if we'll get a sequel. I'm honestly fine either way- my kids would be happy, and I'd be ambivalent about watching another one. If this is it, I'm okay with that, too.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



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