‘Dog Man’ review: A satisfying cinematic debut for the ruff-and-tumble hero

Peter Hasting’s Dog Man is a dark comedy for children that can captivate newcomers and leave fans clamoring for more.

DreamWorks Animation’s 2017 adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series took in less money at the box office than any of the studio’s films since 2003. The First Epic Movie was destined to be the last. Except… maybe not? The film cost $100 million less than the studio’s precedeing decade of per-film spending, which meant the low turnout still turned a profit. Even better, critics and fans saw it as one of the most inventive films the studio ever made. Enter: Dog Man. The series, spun off of a single throwaway line in the first Captain Underpants book, rapidly eclipsed its progenitor to become one of the best-selling graphic novel series of all time. If you’ve heard about its recent conquest of the box-office, you’ll be happy to know that Dog Man also brings quality entertainment to the table.

Primarily adapting the third book in the series (Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties) with assorted bits from other books thrown in, the film opens with the untimely deaths of OK City policeman Officer Knight and his partner Greg the Dog (both voiced by writer/director Peter Hastings). Knight’s head and Greg’s body go up in smoke, but some enterprising doctors stitch the surviving pieces together a la Robocop. The result is DOG MAN: a half-dog, half-man crimefighter who quickly becomes the bane of “world’s most evilest cat” Petey (Pete Davidson). Petey hates that one of his schemes led to Dog Man’s creation, and this antagonistic relationship gets even worse when Dog Man befriends Petey’s young clone Li’l Petey (Lucas Hopkins Calderon). Dog Man’s short-tempered boss (Lil Rel Howery), Petey’s neglectful father (Stephen Root), and a telekinetic dead fish (Ricky Gervais) provide further complications.

Body horror for children? It’s better than you’d think.

If this sounds like a body horror film for children, that’s because it absolutely is. Dog Man is willing to get plenty dark, and not just in the Cronenbergian nature of its hero. OK City’s police (including Dog Man) are incompetent. Its government is corrupt. And the citizens suffer accordingly. That’s not even getting into any of the characters’ personal relationships. There’s a lengthy scene in which Dog Man learns Officer Knight’s girlfriend left for another man (and another man’s dog) the moment she learned of the duo’s accident. And much of the film is spent contrasting Petey’s willingness to abandon Li’l Petey just like his own father abandoned him.

But this isn’t one of those kids movies with a few adult jokes the kids won’t understand. This is a movie for children, and a good one at that. Just like its source material, Dog Man aims to appeal to children without talking down to them. It understands that children get scared and sad, and it understands that something can be scary or sad and still be funny. The film walks this tight rope masterfully. Hastings knows when to put a serious topic in focus and when to leave it a bit fuzzy. He knows when to punctuate a bleak moment with a punchline and when to let it stand on its own merits. The result is a dark comedy worthy of laughs from kids and adults.

The animation is very much a tribute to Dav Pilkey’s art style — even more so than Captain Underpants was — and it’s extremely pleasing to the eye. Seeing 3D images still maintaining the heart of 2D crayon drawings is impressive even when compared to the output of stylized mainstream animation that has come about in recent years. But where the film really shines is in its performances, largely mute title character aside. Lucas Hopkins Calderon is legitimately fantastic in his film debut, while Pete Davidson gives what is amusingly one of the most complex and nuanced performances of his career. Add in Lil Rel Howery chewing as much scenery as he can muster and it’s hard to not have a great time. And when you have this good of performances alongside such incredible script and direction, it’s truly something special.

The bottom line.

We can’t go back in time and give Captain Underpants the theatrical appreciation it deserved. But audiences deserve to enjoy a movie as good as Dog Man, and a movie as good as Dog Man deserves an audience.

Dog Man is now playing in theaters everywhere. Watch the trailer here.

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Images courtesy of Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Animation. Read more articles by Brogan Luke Bouwhuis here.