New Canine Classic, or Total Dog’s Breakfast?
There’s something to be said for a complex concept pared down so elegantly that it’s near universally-accessible, but there’s also more than a little merit to playing a totally ludicrous concept both emotionally straight and 100% committed to The Bit. Dog Man, from Captain Underpants creator Dave Pilkey, is “in canon” the creation of two 10-year-old boys who drew a comic with the premise “What if a dog’s head were sewn onto a dog’s body to fight crime?” And if your answer to that question is “What monster would do that, and what horror would arise from such an unholy union?” Well, good news – you’ll really enjoy the blatant Robocop homage in Act 1.
Set in the Ohkay City, these cataclysmic events are set in motion when the dastardly villain Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson) decides to get rid of the police officers constantly foiling his evil plans. When Officer Knight (Peter Hastings) and his sidekick Greg the Dog (also Peter Hastings) are caught in an explosion, the medical staff at the [insert hospital name here] decide that emergency experimental surgery is the only way to save them. Enter Dog Man (Peter Hastings. . . again), a kung-fu kicking crime-solving tennis ball-chasing super cop who’s so good at his job that he makes the chief of police and the mayor look bad.
There’s not a lot of story turns that will surprise adult viewers, but the movie is built to feel incredibly satisfying to younger audiences just becoming familiar with genre conventions. Not only does the movie toss off a few banger Family Guy-style cutaway bits while also building several escalating gags around family action/adventure tropes and cop fiction, but it also stuffs the frame with visual jokes running the gamut from riffing on the source material (like, “What would a couple kids name all the stuff in a Big Important City?”) to scatological humor and a few “one for the adults in the room” that includes the best Die Hard gag I’ve seen in a minute.
The animation also bears notice, in spite of the film’s fairly low budget. The movement and weight of the characters captures the elusive “feel” of 2D animation in a way few animated family movies can, bringing the essence of the books to life similarly to 2016’s The Peanuts Movie with flashes of the “2D elements mixed with 3D animation and tweaked frame rate” that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse became synonymous with. The character designs – while more complex than the ones in the books – are very simple yet consistently expressive, the film uses its set pieces to punchy effect without having them become overbearing or monotonous, and it’s canny about switching up the dynamics between its ostensibly one-note characters.
Where Dog Man excels is in both taking well-worn fiction and family film tropes (“What if you had to be your own buddy cop?”) and both contrasting their familiarity with outlandish exaggerated surroundings while also building several extended moments around shocking emotional honesty. The story the trailers were selling is mostly wrapped up shortly after the midpoint, but then the film goes back to seemingly one-off gags for incredibly complex wacky set pieces that still exemplify solid structure and paying off of character beats. The voice cast is largely quite sharp (with the one notable exception being Ricky Gervais seemingly trying to mimic Richard Ayoade’s Professor Marmelade from 2022’s The Bad Guys) and the way they can switch between total farce and absolutely serious brings the best kind of classic cartoon comedy energy to what otherwise could have been a very rote adaptation.
Dog Man packs a surprising amount of story and earnestness into a film with such a Looney Tunes premise and tight pacing, and while it’s not as artistically rich or singularly brilliant in its set pieces as something like the Spider-Verse films or Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, it’s rollicking and inventive the whole time. It’s a film that can both be about generation trauma and co-parenting while also reveling in a gag where a building farts (I told you it goes places). It’s precisely the sort of big-hearted screwball yarn that two hyperactive kids would dream up, and over-delivers while wasting none of your time.
Presentation:
Universal has been rock solid on the home video fidelity front for awhile now, and Dog Man keeps their unbroken streak of rock solid DreamWorks Animation releases on the video front. This won’t necessarily be a “demo disc” for cinephiles, but presents the film’s combination of simple “toyetic” character designs, watercolor splashed backgrounds, and textures like fur and shrubbery that contrast some of the more “claymation”-like smoothness of a lot of surfaces.
The film’s varied (and sometimes surprisingly moody) use of color is well captured in HD, with the action and “drawn-on” effects popping off the screen. This isn’t a movie that’s attempting to bowl you over with its visuals like a high-end Pixar or Sony animated joint, but it’s never boring or ugly.
Tom Howe’s (Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon, The Great British Bake-Off) brassy score gets well-treated on this release as well. The soundscape sits somewhere between Tex Avery to Lupin III, and the jazzy big band mix is heavy when it needs to be while still being crystal clear. This goes for the voice work as well, which hits “big” without frequencies tipping into “shrill.” And when the film needs to sound like a literal skyscraper is stomping around a city, the foley and sound effects work is more than on point.
Bonus Content:
Like most movies being released by major studios these days, I yearn for a full 4K special edition of this, if nothing else than to get an in-depth look at the animation process (which we at least get a taste of here). However, there are more than a couple morsels to be found on Dog Man‘s physical release – and I’m not just saying that because I’m always a sucker for a feature-length audio commentary.
Blu-ray Disc:
Theatrical Cut of the film (89 minutes)
- Feature Commentary with Screenwriter / Director Peter Hastings
- Deleted and Extended Scenes with Introductions by Screenwriter / Director Peter Hastings (bonus scenes accompanied by black-and-white animatics)
- Meet the Pack (behind the scenes during recording sessions with the actors)
- The Making of Dog Man: A Sarah Hatoff Exclusive (“Special Report” on the making of the film)
- How to Draw Flip-O-Rama Style (Head of story Anthony Zierhut demonstrates how to draw characters from the film)
- How to make Doughnuts For Dogs (recipe / demonstration for doggie treat doughnuts)
Dog Man is now available on Blu-ray and Digital from Universal.
