Dog Man

January 30, 202570/1007 min
Starring
Isla Fisher, Poppy Liu, Lil Rel Howery, Pete Davidson
Written by
Dav Pikey, Peter Hastings
Directed by
Peter Hastings
Run Time
1h 29min
Release Date
January 31st, 2025
Overall Score
Rating Summary

As a parent you always want to be aware of what your kids are watching. The shows on basic cable got so bad where barely clothed prostitutes were strangled by a serial murder before the credits on N.C.I.S.U.S.M.P.O.S. or whatever was out there at the time. This is partly the reason we cut cable back in 2007. And why my youngest was 6 before she saw her first toy commercial. But I digress. When it comes to kids movies, I usually don’t bat an eye at what they want to watch, I don’t worry about inappropriate stuff on streaming, I am usually more concerned with boring and poorly made crap on streaming. But if my kid wants to watch the animated snake movieĀ Sahara on Netflix 10 times, I tend not stop her. Now when it comes to books, I am of the mind that my kids can read just about anything they want. Of course, no erotic fiction, but pretty much anything else.

The Dog Man book series by Dav Pilkey was first collected by my son, and then his younger sister picked them up off the shelf years later. Again, they sold this in the kid section of book stores, it was published by Scholastic and it was essentially a comic book, so I bought all of them as they were released. It wasn’t til the trailer of Universal’s adaptation of Dog Man that I discovered the main characters dark origin. The cop Knight and his dog partner Greg have parts of their body blown up when a terrorist cat named Petey’s leaves it for them (because dogs are color blind and he cut the wrong wire). My first thought was “what the hell?” But my kids assured me it was fine, this is just how he becomes the part dog, part man, all hero: Robocop. Wait, that’s not right.

Petey (Pete Davidson) has the same aspirations as most evil villains: to rule the world. But in order to get there though he must remove his one obstacle the new hero “supa” cop Dog Man. So the Chief (Lil Rel Howery) keeps having Dog Man arrest Petey as he keeps breaking out of cat jail. And Petey keeps creating new and elaborate ways to dispose of Dog Man. One of Petey’s latest inventions involves creating a clone army of himself to defeat Dog Man, but due to a fine print error he ends up making a miniature version of himself, Li’l Petey (Lucas Hopkins Calderon). This leads to Li’l Petey being torn between two nemesis’s as they battle for the city. And there is also a crazy-mutant-robot-evil-fish as well.

Dog Man is a kids movie in every sense, it’s bright, fast-paced, goofy, action-packed and has a lesson about families. It leans on its comic book roots in cute and clever ways, playing with their format, they don’t break the fourth wall, but they comment on montages, and attack the words that appear over their heads when they shout. In that sense it is enjoyable for the whole family. What I found a bit taxing, Dog Man has a dog head and he doesn’t talk, so the Chief and Petey do the lions share of the talking, or more accurately the yelling. They shout through a lot of the movie and sometimes goes on way too long. And I have to say Pete Davidson as Petey is a really good villain. He’s grumpy, has a sad backstory, is villainous in the fun ways, and he’s reflective at times. Having those layers make him engaging wether he’s laughing maniacally aboard a giant vacuum (because dogs hate vacuums) or when he’s pausing to himself in the middle of a lie to a child.

The film right at an hour and a half doesn’t overstay its welcome. It plays like a kids comic book, with kinetically wild ideas and an over the top climax that kids will love, because that’s where the fart joke is. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t say thatĀ Dog Man is a howling good time for the whole family and it mostly balances its heart and humor in a way that will entertain both old and new fans alike.

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