‘Dog Man’ Review: Pete Davidson in a Consistently Delightful, Surprisingly Heartfelt ‘Captain Underpants’ Spinoff

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Doesn’t it seem somewhat unsettling to you that the concept behind the latest DreamWorks Animation film, Dog Man, appears a bit peculiar? The main character, from Dav Pilkey’s popular children’s graphic novel series, is a being with a human body and a dog’s head. In the story, Officer Knight and his police dog Greg get injured together during duty and are taken to the emergency room. A nurse, assessing the damage to Officer Knight’s head and Greg’s body, suggests an unusual solution: “What if we were to join the dog’s head onto the man’s body?

Thus comes the birth of Dog Man, as steadfast in his pursuit of criminals as Knight, yet exhibiting Greg’s affectionate habit of licking people, even the grumpy police chief, played by Lil Rel Howery. Since the character is a dog, it doesn’t speak but instead barks and growls. The concept seems reminiscent of body horror, leading one to question why David Cronenberg didn’t consider this for his next project.

It’s clear that Pilkey is hitting the mark with his work, as evidenced by the impressive sales figures for the series, which began in 2016 as a spin-off of his popular Captain Underpants series. The series has sold over 60 million copies of its 13 books to date, and one of its upcoming titles, Dog Man: The Scarlet Shedder, was the top-selling children’s book of 2024. Given this success, it’s no wonder that the character has made its way to the big screen. Therefore, parents may want to make adjustments to their weekend plans to accommodate this exciting new development.

The main enemy of Dog Man is named Petey, a mischievous orange cat who takes joy in his wickedness. He’s voiced by Pete Davidson with such flair and enthusiasm that it seems as if he was destined for this role. In his latest scheme, Petey aims to clone himself to increase his criminal abilities, but encounters a problem when he doesn’t bother to read the instructions for the cloning machine ahead of time. Despite this, he manages to create a duplicate, but finds that it needs 18 years to mature. During this period, Petey gets an unexpected companion in the form of Little Petey (played by Lucas Hopkins Calderon), who affectionately refers to him as “Daddy” and, much like children at a certain age, replies to everything with the question, “Why?

Although Petey was wicked, he unexpectedly grew fond of his tiny duplicate. Consequently, when Little Petey ended up in the grasp of Flippy (played by Ricky Gervais), a fish that was even more sinister, mechanically advanced, and once deceased (for more details, read the books), he had no choice but to team up with Dog Man. This character has developed an affinity for Little Petey.

Initially being evil, Petey found himself growing attached to his adorable miniature replica. Thus, when Little Petey wound up in the hands of Flippy (performed by Ricky Gervais), a fish that was even more malevolent and technologically enhanced, having been resuscitated, he was compelled to work together with Dog Man, who had formed a bond with Little Petey.

Filmmaker Hastings lends the character of Dog Man his voice, or more accurately, his barks, like “ruff”, and even belts out “I’m So Lonely I Could Cry”. He adds clever nuances to the movie, such as a spoof advertisement for a crime-fighting buddy show featuring Petey and Dog Man. Although the humor is primarily aimed at kids, there are some amusing adult jokes sprinkled throughout, like Little Petey saying a child-friendly version of Bruce Willis’ iconic “Yippee ki-yay” from Die Hard. Remarkably, the film also manages to evoke genuine feelings as it shows Petey developing affection for his cloned offspring.

The animation is consistently charming, filled with humorously placed visual jokes and creative embellishments, much like a group of mischievous structures. This film is worth watching on a large screen due to these captivating details. The impressive voice cast includes Isla Fisher as a fearless TV reporter, Stephen Root as Petey’s grumpy father, and in smaller roles, Laraine Newman, Cheri Oteri, Melissa Villaseñor, and Kate Micucci. The vocal performances are so energetic that the recording studio must have been filled with an abundance of energy drinks.

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2025-01-29 20:25