If you’re like me and have children, you absolutely brought your kid to a comic bookstore, but instead of them going crazy for Marvel or DC, they might have fallen in love with cartoonist/author/illustrator Dav Pilkey’s “Captain Underpants” graphic novels. Captain Underpants is a fun, easy-to-read superhero story for young kids and has had more than 12 different graphic novel volumes, as well as the spin-off series “Dog Man” which pivoted away from the teenage superhero for a tale of a Dog whose head was sewn onto its former (and currently deceased) police officer owner and worked as a police officer in OK City. Dog Man itself has had more than 14 volumes as well as creating its own spin-of “Cat Kid” (so expect that character to show up in a sequel), so it’s a no-brainer that such a popular kids graphic novel would get its own film adaptation in the new Dog Man film.
Although the Dog Man character is a Captain Underpants spin-off, Dog Man operates on its own and doesn’t connect to the other Pilkey-Verse characters and still is funny and entertaining but isn’t really connected to Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. This is good because it gives the film a chance to do its own thing. The story begins introducing the audience to the titular hero’s nemesis Petey, the evil talking cat who terrorizes the city (Pete Davidson). Petey plants a bomb as part of his reign of terror and famed cop Officer Knight and his pet come to diffuse the bomb. Unfortunately, the bomb still goes off. However, the police department launches its own “Six Million Dollar Man” adventure as they manage to sew the dog’s head onto Officer Knight’s body. Bad for Officer Knight, but good for “Dog Man” the new “supa-cop” for the department.
Dog Man (voiced, well “barked” by writer/director Peter Hastings) is now on the force and under the direction of the Chief (Lil Rel Howery), who acts just like every clichéd police chief riding our hero to do things by the book and his way. The Chief is always worried about the mayor (Cheri Oteri) breathing down his neck about Petey. In his downtime, Dog Man misses his former owner. Officer Knight’s home was sold, and his former girlfriend has moved on, so Dog Man is truly on his own. Because Hasting doesn’t do any vocals, Dog Man’s performance is driven by the Dreamworks animation team and Hasting’s barks, grunts, and whines.
Dog Man proves to be a great foil for Petey and stops most of his evil plans, so Pety has to make plans to up the ante. He decides that one Petey is not enough for Dog Man, he needs to clone himself. However, because Petey didn’t read the directions, his clone is a baby version of himself: Li’l Petey (Lucas Hopkins Calderon). But since Li’l Petey is still a baby, Pety doesn’t have the patience for him and abandons him. Dog Man, ever the kind soul meets the abandoned kitty and takes him in, and slowly becomes a surrogate father for the young cat.
Pety continues his schemes and brings back a dead supervillain fish named Flippy (Ricky Gervais), who not only is just as evil as Pety (probably more), but he also has telekinesis. Flippy slowly morphs into Dog Man’s true villain which causes Pety to reexamine his goals as both a supervillain as well as a father for his clone. In fact, the heart of the film doesn’t lie with Dog Man, but the dynamic between Pety, Li’l Petey, and Petey’s estranged father, Grampa (Stephen Root)
Dog Man is a completely wacky, fun, and silly film that knows exactly what it is and its goal. The animation style is the same as Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie and perfectly captures the graphic novel’s Spider-Verse style of animation. There are plenty of strange hijinks from the graphic novel (talking terroristic cats, talking telekinetic British fish, animatronic building raging kaiju-style, and plenty of other fun stuff), but the film also packs a whole lot of heart, and the touching family moments are well done. Expect either a sequel, or another Pilkey-Verse spin-off as it’s clear this franchise is here to stay!!
Dog Man is now playing in theaters nationwide.
