Dog Man (2025) review

Dir. Peter Hastings

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

After children’s author/illustrator Dav Pilkey ended the Captain Underpants book series in the mid 2010s, he set his sights on entertaining the next generation with Dog Man, a series of books revolving around a half-man/half-canine police officer. Unsurprisingly, the series — which throws animal humor, whiz-bang action, and slapstick into a blender and presses “mix” without the lid secured — was a huge success. Pilkey doesn’t nearly get the credit he deserves for being so tapped into children’s entertainment, across multiple generations too.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie might’ve come roughly 13 years later than I wanted, but as someone who read and re-read the series cover-to-cover, multiple times, it was everything I wanted. I was less familiar with Dog Man, outside of the first book, but I was no less excited. Once again, DreamWorks brings a colorful and unapologetically manic concept to life.

Who better to do it than Peter Hastings, whose work on Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain makes him practically overqualified to give Dog Man the feature-film treatment. He also developed The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants for DreamWorks/Netflix, and it’s clear early on that he understands the rhythms of this series, as well as it’s appeal. This is the kind of movie that has text appear on-screen in conjunction with actions. “WHACK!” “BOOM!” “BAM!” “KABLOOEY!” Hastings and the legion of animators make it all feel natural and welcomed.

Dog Man opens with the origins of its titular pup. Officer Knight (voiced by Hastings) and his loyal dog Greg are both badly injured in a bomb blast. In the ER, a nurse opines that the officer’s body and the dog’s head can be salvaged. That’s how Dog Man (Hastings voices the barks and growls) is born, and he continues life as a police officer in the busy metro of Ohkay City.

He surely doesn’t get the grace of Officer Knight, however. The mayor (Cheri Oteri), busy reporter (Isla Fisher), and police chief (Lil Rel Howery) are all on Dog Man’s case because Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson) is wreaking havoc on the city. After his assistant abruptly quits (she’s tired of being paid in chocolate coins), he decides to clone himself. Unfortunately, the clone turns out to be a kitten version of himself. He calls him “Li’l Petey” (Lucas Hopkins Calderon), and his inherent cuteness gets everyone to warm up to him immediately, including Dog Man. This further complicates Petey’s plans, which also involve enlisting in the help of a telekinetic fish named Flippy (Ricky Gervais).

Dog Man is as chaotic as the premise suggests. I’m almost done lamenting the fact that children’s entertainment feels compelled to emulate the speed of light in order to captivate ever-dwindling attention spans. The fact of the matter is I’d argue that Pilkey’s writing/drawing style has always harbored this manic energy. Pilkey’s books made you an active participant in the mayhem, most notably “Flip-O-Rama,” where turning a particular page rapidly brought slaps and kicks to life before your eyes. The animators are on the same page with Pilkey’s rapid-fire drawings, replicating age-old hand-drawn animation and merging it with bubbly CGI and stop-motion-esque stylings.

It would all be merely amusing if it didn’t lead to something credible in the pathos department. Hastings slows the frenzied pace of the story just enough to let true sentiment shine, suggesting that there are no real villains in this story. No enemy is unable to be rehabilitated, or at least understood. In time, it becomes clear that defeating the villain can be achieved by trying to work together, or at least establishing some common ground. I guess after a diet of superhero cinema for the better half of two decades, I was relieved to see that there were other ways for superhero movies to end than watching the villain dissolve into an ambiguous abyss of blackness. There’s also something to be said for a children’s movie unafraid to introduce children to Hank Williams’s classic “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” at such an impressionable age.

The theatrical release of Dog Man is preceded by a Bad Guys short called “Little Lies and Alibis.” It’s the ideal appetizer for the sequel we’re getting later this year. My girlfriend, Catherine, bought me books 1-16 of The Bad Guys for Christmas. The child in you only dies if you let it.

My review of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Voiced by: Peter Hastings, Lil Rel Howery, Pete Davison, Lucas Hopkins Calderon, Isla Fisher, Ricky Gervais, Billy Boyd, and Stephen Root. Directed by: Peter Hastings.