For The Kids: Our Review of ‘Dog Man'(2025)

Posted in Movies, Theatrical by - January 29, 2025
For The Kids: Our Review of ‘Dog Man'(2025)

Can man’s best friend be the city’s greatest hero?

Spinning off in the Captain Underpants universe and based on the graphic novel series of the same name; Dog Man is an often frenetic but ultimately family friendly affair that will delight the younger fans in your household and generate enough smiles and giggles from the parents who take them to make it a solidly entertaining time for all.

When a faithful police dog and his human police officer owner are injured together on the job, a harebrained but life-saving surgery fuses the two of them together and Dog Man is born. Dog Man is sworn to protect and serve—and fetch, sit and roll over. As Dog Man embraces his new identity and strives to impress his Chief (voiced by Lil Rel Howery), he must stop the pretty evil plots of feline supervillain Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson). Petey’s latest plan is to clone himself, creating the kitten Lil Petey, to double his ability to do crime stuff. Things get complicated, though, when Lil Petey forges an unexpected bond with Dog Man. When Lil Petey falls into the clutches of a common enemy, Dog Man & Petey reluctantly join forces in an action-packed race against time to rescue the young kitten from evil. In the process, they discover the power of family (& kittens!) to bring even the most hostile foes together.

While Dog Man obviously skews towards the younger audiences, there’s still enough cute things going on this high octane adventure to keep everyone engaged.

Co-Writer/Director Peter Hastings matches the ADHD style of creator Dav Pikey’s storytelling style which to is to say the least; visually busy.  The youngsters will engage with the solid and often eye-popping style of the animation, even while it may cause a few parents to have their eyeballs tilt into the back of their heads, it serves the core audience well.

Jammed with content and filled with a voice ensemble who can tell are having fun with the over the top often silly dialogue it only adds to the entertainment value of it because when you add in an underrated animation team which makes parts of the film pop like it is Claymation, it’s all undeniable.  It’s yet another example of how dynamic the animation styles that are coming from places other than Pixar and Disney in the studio landscape.

Ultimately, Dog Man is a low risk, solid reward for families looking to get the kids out of the house in the dead of January for some quality entertainment, but it doesn’t quite live up the surprise frenetic energy that the first Captain Underpants movie brought to the big screen.

This post was written by
David Voigt is a Toronto based writer with a problem and a passion for the moving image and all things cinema. Having moved from production to the critical side of the aisle for well over 10 years now at outlets like Examiner.com, Criticize This, Dork Shelf (Now That Shelf), to.Night Newspaper he’s been all across his city, the country and the continent in search of all the news and reviews that are fit to print from the world of cinema.
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